



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



THE TUDOR DRAMA 

A HISTORY OF ENGLISH NATIONAL DRAMA 
TO THE RETIREMENT OF SHAKESPEARE 



BY 



C. F. TUCKER BROOKE, B. Litt. (Oxon.) 

lA'STKUCTOR IN ENGLISH IN YALE UNIVERSITY 

yOHMEELY SENIOR DEMY OF MAGOALEN 

COLLEGE, OXFORD 




BOSTON NEW YOKK CHICAGO 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
(jarijE Ritierjiibe ptesg Cambriboe 



^7 



COPYRIGHT, igll, BY C. F. TfCKER BROOKE 

'all rights reserved 




;CI.A297307 



PREFACE 

The following pages have grown out of a series of 
lectures on "The Sources of the Elizabethan Drama," 
given in 1908 at Magdalen College, Oxford. To the 
members of that society are due the author's grateful 
acknowledgments for stimulus and opportunity. In 
the present volume very few words remain as they were 
first written. The scope of the book has been consider- 
ably broadened and its commencement pushed back 
beyond the reign of Elizabeth. It is believed, however, 
that the point of view expressed in the title of the lec- 
tures has been retained, and it is hoped that the origi- 
nal aim of tracing the genesis and development of 
the various types of Tudor drama will be found still 
to justify the method of treatment. 

It is probably not harti to defend the chronological 
limits and the title of this essay. There would seem to 
be a practical convenience in a treatment commencing 
with the earliest evidences of English national drama 
and closing with the highest accomplishment of that 
drama in the work of Shakespeare. Nor does it appear 
a gross exaggeration to include this entire evolution 
within the confines of " The Tudor Drama " ; for though 
most of the specimens discussed in the first two chap- 
ters had their original inception in the century before 
the Tudor era began, there can be no doubt that they 
still remained at the opening of our period the most 
characteristic expressions of English dramatic genius, 



iv PREFACE 

and that their consideration belongs justly therefore 
to the history of Tudor culture. 

The course of our study brings the orbit of English 
dramatic criticism to its perihelion in the examination 
of Shakespeare, the central sun, and those dramatic 
satellites who most closely share his attitude toward 
life and art. It would be an alluring task to trace this 
orbit still farther, through the clearly connected Jaco- 
bean, Caroline, and Restoration phases to its aphelion 
at the close of the Stuart epoch. But the consideration 
of Stuart drama in its entirety offers scope for another 
volume, and the temptation to stray beyond the logical 
line of demarcation has here been resisted, except where 
the individual work of Shakespeare forms for some nine 
years a kind of Tudor enclave in the midst of Jacobean 
literature. 

The bibliographies appended to the various chapters 
have been arranged with the idea of placing directly 
before the reader's attention all the essential literature 
of the subjects under discussion. Absolute technical 
completeness in this matter "seems beyond the range 
of a work which aspires to the notice of the undergrad- 
uate student and the general reader. However, the 
bibliographies have been independently compiled; and, 
except in the case of Shakespeare, no editions or com- 
mentaries have been intentionally omitted which appear 
to possess any present-day importance. Shakespear- 
ean texts and criticisms are so numerous and so 
abundantly catalogued already, that it has here been 
thought injudicious to go beyond the simple indication 
of the important early editions of each play. The ad- 
mirable and very recent Shakespeare bibliography in 
the fifth volume of the "Cambridge History of Eng- 



PREFACE V 

Hsh Literature" leaves little to be desired, and any re- 
capitulation of its results on the smaller scale suited to 
this book would be a useless impertinence. 

To my friends, Professor W. L. Phelps and Professor 
H.N. MacCracken of Yale University, I have the plea- 
sure of expressing my most hearty thanks for various 
helpful suggestions and for the careful reading of all 
my proofs at a period of the academic year when such 
a service entailed a real sacrifice and became a double 
kindness. 

C. F. T. B. 

Yale University, August, 1911. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

Scriptural and Mir.4Cle Dr.\ma 1-46 

English dramatic progress during the Tudor period (1485- 
1603), 1. — Sources of English national drama, 'i. — "The 
Harrowing of Hell," 5. — Shrewsbury Fragments, ibid. — 
The rise of the guild plays, 6. — The various guild cycles, 7. — 
Manner of guild presentation, 9. — Introduction of comic 
matter, 14. — Developed clownage in the Wakefield cycle, 16. 
— The "Ludus Coventriffi," or Hegge plays, 17. — Scrip- 
tural dramas unconnected with the guild cycles; "Christ's 
Burial and Resurrection," iO ; Dublin and Brome plays of 
" Abraham's Sacrifice," 21; "Candlemas Day," i3. — Miracle 
plays proper; "Dux Moraud," 27; the Croxton Play of the Sac- 
rament, 29; "The Conversion of St. Paul," 31; "Mary Magda- 
lene," 33. — General survey of the religious drama at the open- 
ing of the Tudor period, 34. — The influence of this dr^ma 
upon the Elizabethan theatre, 35. — Bibliography, 38. 

CHAPTER II 

The Early Morality 47-68 

The relation of the morality to the mystery, 47. — Pater- 
noster and creed plays, 48. — The connection of the morality 
with profane allegorical literature, 49. — "The Pride of Life," 
50. — "The Castle of Perseverance," 51. — Significance of this 
type of play for the later drama, 53. — Circumstances of presen- 
tation. 55. — The morality as an art form, 59. — "Mind, Will, 
and Understanding " (or " Wisdom"), 61. — "Mankind, " 63. — 
The vulgarizing of the morality, 65. — Bibliography, 67. 

CHAPTER HI 

The Tudor Interlude 69-102 

Origin and nature of the interlude. 69. — Medwall's "Na- 
ture," 71. — "The Nature of the Four Elements," 73. — "Wit 



iii CONTENTS 

and Science" and "Wit and Wisdom" interludes, 76. — "The 
World and the Child," 78. — " Ilickscorner," 80. — "The Inter- 
lude of Youth" and "Lusty Juventus," 81. — Political inter- 
ludes: Skelton's "Magnificence," 82; minor satirical interludes 
and dialogues, 83; "Respublica," 85. — John Bale, 80. — Lind- 
say's "Satire of the Three Estates," 88. — Interludes intended 
for amusement solely : John Hey wood, 93. — Hey wood as dra- 
matic artist, 96. — Bibliography, 98. 



CHAPTER IV 

The Interlude in Transition 103-146 

Complex affiliations of the later interlude, 103. — "John the 
Evangelist," 10-4. — Interludes pointing an economic moral: 
"Wealth and Health," 106; "Like Will to Like," 108; "Impa- 
tient Poverty," 109; " Albion Knight," ibid. ; " The Trial of Trea- 
sure," ibid. — The tendency to diffuseness in late interludes, 1 10. 
— L. Wager's "Repentance of Mary Magdalene," 112. — G. 
WapuU, "The Tide Tarricth No Man," 113. — Metrical fea- 
tures of the latter play, 115. — T. Lupton, "All for Money," 
117. — W. Wager, "The Longer Thou Livest the more Fool 
Thou Art," 119. — N. Woodes, "The Conflict of Conscience," 
120. — "The Contention between Liberality and Prodigality," 
122. — Interludes based on foreign models: "Nice Wanton," 
121; T. Ingelend, "The Disobedient Child," 125; G. Gascoigne, 
"The Glass of Government," 127. — Interludes introducing 
real characters: John Bale's "King John," 130; "Godly Queen 
Hester," 131; "King Darius," 132; "Jacob and Esau," 133. — 
Interludes based on romantic material: "Calisto and Melibea," 
133; John Phillip's "Comedy of Meek and Patient Grissell," 
135. — Interludes presenting classic figures: "Thcrsites," 135; 
J. Pikering's "Ilorcstes" and related plays, 138. — The change 
from interlude to Elizabethan comedy or tragedy, I-IO. — Bib- 
liography, 1-12. 



CHAPTER V 

Classical Influence in Comedy 147-187 

The narrow range of native English comedy, 147. — Differ- 
ent manifestations of Latin influence on Elizabethan comedy» 
148. — Inheritances from Latin drama, 150. — Vogue of Latin 
comedy on the Continent and in England, 154. — Translations 



CONTENTS i 

of Terence and Plautus. 156. — "Jack Juggler," 156. — N. 
Udall, "Ralph Roister Doister," 158. — "Gammer Gurton's 
Needle," 161. — G. Gascoigne, "The Supposes," 164. — 
"Misogonus," 165. — "The Bugbears," 168. — "Fedele and 
Fortunio," 169. — John Lyiy, 169-179. His relation to classic 
art and to court fashion, 170. — Terentian imitation in"Mother 
Bombie," 172. — Artistic uncertainty in "Carapaspe," 173. 
— Lyly'iS six characteristic plays: courtly allegories and my- 
thological pastorals, 174. — Mythological pastorals by other 
writers: G. Peele, "The Arraignment of Paris," 180; "The Rare 
Triumphs of Love and Fortune," ibid. — Bibliography, 181. 



CHAPTER VI 

Classical Influence in Tragedy 188-229 

Difference in the effect of classic influence in comedy and in 
tragedy, 188. — Seneca and his translators, 189. — Borrowings 
from Seneca, 190. — Norton and Sackville, "P'errex and Por- 
rex" (or "Gorboduc"), 191. — Blank verse in this play, 193. — 
The dumb-show, ibid. — T. Hughes, etc., "The Misfortunes of 
Arthur," 194. — Gascoigne and Kinwelmersh, "Jocasta," 195. 
— R. Wilmot, etc., "Gismond of Salerne," 196. — Later aca- 
demic tragedy : Lady Pembroke and her set, imitators of 
Gamier, 198; Fulkc Greville, 201; Sir William Alexander, 
ibid. — The popularizing of the Latin tragic model, 204. — Ten- 
tative works of the " Cambises " type, 205. — " Locrine," 207. — 
Thomas Kyd, "The Spanish Tragedy," 209. — Characteristics 
and limitations of Kyd's "tragedy of blood," 210. — "The 
First Part of Jeronimo," 215. — "Soliman and Perseda," 
ibid. — Other successors of "The Spanish Tragedy": the"Ur- 
Hamlct,"217; "Titus Andronicus," 218; "The Jew of Malta," 
"Lust's Dominion," "Alphonsus of Germany," 219 ; H. 
Chettle's " Hoffman," 220. — The refinement of the type in 
"Romeo and Juliet," 221. — Bibliography, 222, 



CHAPTER VII 

The Heroic Play 230-255 

Remote origins of heroic drama in literature of ballad and 
romance, 230. — The attitude of Elizabethan moralists and 
scholars toward the species, 2.33. — "Sir Clyomon and Sir 
Clamides," 236. — "Common Conditions," 237. — The germs 



X CONTENTS 

of character portrayal in such works, 239. — Later efforts in the " 
same strain: T. Hcywood's "Four Prentices of London," etc., 
241. — Marlowe's "Tamburlaine," 243. — Imitations of "Tam- 
burlaine": R. Greene's "Alphonsus of Arragon," "Looking 
Glass for London," and "Orlando Furioso," 246; "The Wars of 
Cyrus," 247. — Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus," 249. — The dis- 
integration of the heroic play, 250. — Influence of the type on 
Marlowe's latest plays and on Shakespeare, ibid. — Biblio- 
graphy, 252. 

CHAPTER VIII 

Romantic Comedy and Pastoral Comedy .... 256-296 

The influence of the prose romance upon the drama, 256. 

— Pastoral literature in Europe, 258. — Longus, "Daphnis' 
and Chloe"; Heliodorus, "/Ethiopica," 259. — Boccaccio's 
" Ameto," 260. — Montemayor's "Diana," ibid. — Characteris- 
tics of this type, 262. — The nature of its influence on the 
drama, 263. — R. Greene, "Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay," 
265. — "James the Fourth," 268. — Greene's method in ro- 
mantic comedy contrasted with Shakespeare's, 269. — Romantic 
comedies possibly suggested by Greene: "Fair Em," 270; 
A. Munday's "John a Kent and John a Cumber," 272, and 
"Robert Earl of Huntington," 273; "The Merry Devil of Ed- 
monton," 276. — Shakespeare's romantic comedy, 279. — 'truc- 
tural peculiarities of this type in Shakespeare's presen on, 
281. — Slightness of responsibility and character develo, lent 
among the dramatis personae, 283. — Relation betweeo: & -ke- 
speare's romantic comedies and his more realistic dramas, 285. 

— The mingling of realism and romance, 287. — Italian pas- 
toral drama, 288. — Tasso's "Aminta," Guarini's "Pastor 
Fido," 289. — Imitation of this species by S. Daniel, 291. — 
J. Fletcher, "The Faithful Shepherdess," 292. — Ben Jonson, 
"The Sad Shepherd," ibid. — Bibliography, 292. 

CHAPTER IX 

9 

The History Play 297-351 

Definition of the species, 297. — Causes of its popularity: 
growth of nationalism, 298; demand for dramatic material, 300. 

— Lost chronicle plays mentioned by Hcnslowe, 301. — Influ- 
ence of "Tamburlaine" upon this type, 302. — Five classes of 
history plays distinguished, 303. — "The Troublesome Reign 
of John" and Shakespeare's " King John," 304. — "The Fa- 



CONTENTS xi 

mous Victories of Henry V," 306. — "The True Tragedy of Rich- 
ard III," 308. — "The Battle of Alcazar" and "Selimus," 311. 
— Thomas Lodge, "The Wounds of Civil War," 312. —The 

Henry VI plays, 313. — Biographical history plays: "Stukely," 

"Thomas Lord Cromwell," "Sir John Oldcastle," "Sir Thomas 
More," 321. — Marlowe, "Edward II," 522. — Shakespeare, 
"Richard III," 323; "Richard II," 326. — "The Tragedy of 
Woodstock," 328. — "Macbeth," "Antony and Cleopatra," 
and " Coriolanus," 329. — "Edward III," 331. — Shakespeare, 
"Henry IV" and "Henry V," 332; "Julius Caesar," 336.— 
Plays on quasi-historical subjects : Peeie's "Edward I," etc., 
338. — "Look about You," 341.— "The Blind Beggar of 
Bednal-Green," etc., 342. — "A Larum for London," 343. — 
Thomas Heywood: "Edward IV," 343; "If You Know Not 
Me, You Know Nobody," 344. — Bibliography, 345. 



CHAPTER X 

Drama of Contemporary Incident 352-389 

Relation of the contemporary murder tragedy to the rude 
chronicle play, 352. — Lost murder plays, 353. — "Arden of 
Feversham," 355. — "A Warning for Fair Women," 357. — R- 
Yarip-gton's "Two Tragedies in One," 362. — "A Yorkshire 
Trar^'dy," 364. — George Wilkins, "The Miseries of Enforced 
Ml <lge": its connection with the murder group and with real- 
isti- cbraedy, 366. — T. Heywood, "A Woman Killed with 
Ki* ,no.-;s," 367. — Other indications of the predilection of 
dramatists for dealing with the immediate present, 369. — The 
Marprelate controversy, 370. — Robert Greene's allusions, 
371. — The "War of the Theatres," 372-386. — The probable 
extent of Jonson's connection with this quarrel, 373. — "Every 
Man out of his Humor," 375. "Cynthia's Revels," ibid. — Mar- 
ston's concern in the dispute, 378. — Evidences of rivalry be- 
tween the Children of the Chapel and the Globe company, 
380. — Allusions in "Hamlet," 381. — The second part of 
Th' Return from Parnassus," 383. — Bibliography, 386. 



CHAPTER XI 

Realistic Comedy 390-421 

The difference between Elizabethan and Jacobean realism, 
390. — The Elizabethan attitude toward social distinctions, 



ii CONTENTS 

391. — Characteristic changes in Jacobean society, 392. — 
Shakespeare's realism, 394-401. — Jonson and Chapman as 
realista, 402-40G. — " Every Man in his Humor," 406. — 
"Patient Grissell" by Dekker, Chettle, and Haughton, 408. — 
The comedy of "Timon," 410. — The Parnassus group, 411. — 
"Club Law," 412. —"Wily Beguiled," 413. — "How a Man 
May Choose a Good Wife from a Bad," ibid. — The Jacobean 
comedies of 1603-1608. 414. — Bibliography, 416. 



CHAPTER XII 

The Nature of Elizabethan Drama 422-446 

Indoor and outdoor plays, 422. — Original predominance of 
the indoor, aristocratic species, 423. — The peculiar status of 
the actor under Elizabeth arid its effect on popular drama, 424. 

— Player and patron, 426. — The evolution of public theatres, 
427. — Theatre and inn-yard, 428. — Elizabethan staging, 430. 

— Comparatively high mechanical development of the profes- 
sional stiige, 432. — The influence of formal criticism upon the 
drama: Puritan attacks, 435; the struggle between classic and 
romantic ideals, 436. — Elizabethan drama as an art product, 
438. — Its connection with religion, 439. — Causes of the 
Jacobean decline, 442. 

Index 447-161 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Interior of the Swan Theatre, ca. 1596 Frontispiece / 

A German Sketch of the Mise en Scene for Religious 

Plays acted within the Church, from Donaue- ^ 

schingen 4 

Humorous Sketches of 14th Century Pageants, 
WITH THEIR Audiences 10 

Sketch illustrating the Division of the Fixed 
Circular Stage used for the Cornish Resurrexio 
Domini Nostri 18 . 

Contemporary Sketch (15th Century) giving Di- 
rections for staging The Castle of Perseverance . 54 * 

Type Reproduction of the same Sketch . . .55 

A Tudor Interlude (?) in Progress: looking 
TOWARD the Audience 140 

Title-page of William Alabaster's Latin Tragedy 
of Roxana, 1632, giving a Picture of an Academic 
Stage, with Actors and Audience .... 192 

Yard of the Four Swans Inn, Bishopsgate, illus- 
trating the usual Scene of Popular Dramatic 
Performances before 1575 . ...... 424 

Title-Page of N. Richards's Tragedy of Messallina, 
1040 432 



THE TUDOR DRAMA 

CHAPTER I 

SCRIPTURAL AND MIRACLE DRAMA 

What modern English life and literature are is due in a 
degree not easily overestimated to the three genera- 
tions of Tudor sovereigns. Far more representative 
of national temper than any of their successors, much 
more practical in their assumj)tion of the responsibili- 
ties of government than any gr<jup of their predeces- 
sors, the Tudors moulded popular feeling and created 
a permanent national consciousness. The influence of 
their age upon the drama was particularly beneficent. 
All that is most characteristic in the development of 
the English theatre falls easily within the one hundred 
and eighteen years of their dominion. Henry VH 
found the artless and provincial makeshifts of guild 
performances and the yet ruder devices of the incipient 
morality: Elizabeth left full-grown a public theatre; 
which, whether we measure its success by actual artis- 
tic results or by the sincerity of its reflection of con- 
temporary life and thought, finds few parallels and 
probably no equal. The mystery cycles and " P] very- 
man " represent the topmost reach of dramatic activity 
in England when the first Tudor sovereign began his 
reign; his grand-daughter might ere she died have seen 
"Hamlet" and "Sejanus." 

The history of English drama as a distinct national 



2 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

type begins with the maturity of the guild cycles, a 
characteristic development of the earlier cosmopolitan 
church drama, which first appears in the fourteenth 
century, attaining its greatest popularity in the fif- 
teenth, but continuing with only gradually abating 
splendor till the close of the reign of Elizabeth. 

The origin of the modern European theatre in the 
services of the mediaeval church is matter of common 
knowledge, and the connection has perhaps received 
already more explanation than it requires. We shall 
see that the relation between dramatic literature and 
contemporary religious feeling continued in England 
till the very end of the Elizabethan period one of the 
most vital influences in the history of the stage. For 
the early Middle Ages religion filled much the place 
that education fills to-day. The Church was the gate- 
way to all the learning, a full half of the magnificence, 
and a large part of the romance of life. To its direct 
inspiration we owe much of the most characteristic 
literature of medisevalism : the "Golden Legend," the 
" Gesta Romanorum," the " Cursor Mimdi " and " Prick 
of Conscience," — no small part even of the work of 
Gower and Chaucer. But for the drama the ecclesi- 
astical influence was wider than this. The pomp and 
ceremony of the mass, the gorgeous display of feast- 
day processions, and, above all, the existence of poten- 
tial bands of actors in the robed and drilled monks and 
choristers, combined to make the Roman Church an 
inevitable nursery of the histrionic art. 

During the ninth and tenth centuries the germs of 
mt)dern drama appeared in the elaborate ritual of the 
Easter service in the greater cathedrals and monas- 
teries of Europe. The dramatic liturgies thus evolved 



SCRIPTURAL AND MIRACLE DRAMA 3 

consisted originally of a few lines of question and 
answer chanted responsively by priests, and taken 
almost literally from the Vulgate Latin lesson for the 
day. The following four lines of dialogue from a ninth- 
century manuscript of the Swiss monastery of St. Gall 
comprise the simplest version extant of the so-called 
Easter "trope": — 

"Quern quaeritis in sepulchre, Christicolae ?" . 
" lesum Nazarenum crucifixum, o caelicolae." 
" Non est hie, surrexit sicut praedixerat. 
Ite, nuntiate quia surrexit de sepulchre." 

A century later the " Concordia Regularis " of St. Eth- 
anwold (ca. 980) furnishes the first document dealing 
with the drama on English soil, in a set of directions for 
the acting of a Winchester trope differing only in 
the slightest details from that of St. Gall. 

In imitation of these Easter celebrations, bits of 
choral dialogue, likewise beginning with the words 
"Quem quaeritis," were early devised for insertion into 
the services of Christmas and Ascension Day. Once 
introduced, the dramatic element in the liturgy be- 
came widely popular and rapidly extended itself. 
Harking back from the Christmas play of the Saviour's 
birth, characters and events from the Old Testament 
were introduced by way of prologue or forecast, while 
at the same time the Easter and Ascension plays de- 
veloped sequels dealing with the reign of Antichrist 
and the Final Judgment. It was but the matter of a 
century or so till the two sets of plays, presenting re- 
spectively the birth of Christ and his resurrection and 
ascension, had grown to meet each other and fused 
into a complete religious drama embracing the history 
of the Bible from Creation to Judgment Day. 



4 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Into the nature of the drama which was thus forming 
itself during the middle centuries of the dark ages 
within the bosom of the Church, there entered several 
alien elements, later productive of scandal, suppression, 
persecution, and finally the complete self-assertion and 
independence of the stage. The licensed burlesques of 
religion, incident to jocular monastic festivals like the 
Feast of the Ass and the Boy Bishop, were the means of 
introducing into the serious drama the element of comic 
irreverence which persists in the Elizabethan Lords of 
Misrule,^ and which, long before the time of Elizabeth, 
had annihilated all just claim of the theatre to reli- 
gious influence or ecclesiastical sanction. 

From primeval pagan customs like the village dance 
the nascent drama derived important characteristics, 
only thinly disguised under the religious exterior of the 
whole, — characteristics which survive most plainly 
in the Morris dan^ces and St. George plays of later 
times.- 

A third source of extra-ecclesiastical influence ex- 
isted in the mimetic performances of the buffoons and 
story-tellers — mimes and jongleurs — who wandered 
everywhere through mediaeval Europe, ministering to 
the popular thirst for that histrionic imitation of life 
which the serious church drama gave, and yet gave 
insuflSciently. For these mimes it is possible to make 
out a continuous, though partly supposititious, pedi- 
gree, straight from the late Latin mountebanks to the 
clowns of the Elizabethan stage, — the only piece of 

* For an unsympathetic, Puritan, account of the Lords of Misrule, 
see Stubbes, Anatomie of Abuses (1583). ed. 1879, 146-148. , 

^ See A. B. Beatty, The St. George or Mummers' Plays ; a Study in 
the Protohgy of the Drama, 1906. 




KEY TO NO. 1. 

A, B, C. The three di- 
visions of the stage, 
correspondiug to 
the nave, choir, 
and sauctuary of a 
church. 

1. The first door. 

2. Hell. 

3. The Garden of 

Gethsemane. 

4. Mount Olivet. 

5. The second door. 

6. Herod's palace. 

7. Pilate's palace. 

8. The pillar of 
scourging. 

9. The pillar for the 
cock. 

10. The house of Cai- 
aphas. 

11. The house of An- 
nas. 

12. The house of the 
Last Supper. 

13. The third door. 

14. 15, IG, 17. Graves 
from wliich the 
dead arise. 

15. 19. Crosses of the 
two thieves. 

20. Cross of Christ. 

21. The Holy Sepul- 
chre. 

22. Heaven. 



A GERMAN SKETCH OF THE MISE EN SCENE FOR RELIGIOUS PLAYS 
ACTED WITHIN THE CHURCH, FROM DONAUESCHINGEN 



Reproduced from E. K. Chambers, Medixval t<tage. 



SCRIPTURAL AND MIRACLE DRAMA 5 

even tolerably probable classic influence which the 
English drama can be shown to feel for many a day. 

The history of dramatic origins is an international 
affair. Evidence has to be pieced together over the 
face of all Euroj)e, and one of the most striking facts 
evolved is the original absence of local or personal 
peculiarities. For England, indeed, till the beginning 
of the fourteenth century, the dramatic records are so 
scanty as to reveal almost nothing, except a general and 
rather backward adherence to the scheme of develop- 
ment, illustrated by the liturgical plays of France and 
Germany, The earliest drama was written entirely in 
Latin, and without suggestion of any special local con- 
sciousness. Only in the more advanced and less ortho- 
dox plays can we trace the gradual intrusion of the ver- 
nacular spirit and idiom. 

It is usual to count among the very earliest attempts 
at dramatic writing in English "The Harrowing of 
Hell," preserved in three manuscripts of the beginning 
of the fourteenth century. This piece of two hundred 
and forty-four lines consists mainly of speeches, in short 
riming couplets, by Dominus (i. e., Christ), Satan, the 
"Janitor" of Hell, and the departed spirits of Adam, 
Eve, Abraham, David, John the Baptist, and Moses. 
It seems perfectly clear, however, that the work was 
never intended for actual presentation, and it remains 
doubtful whether its author can properly be consid- 
ered to have crossed the wide gulf which separates the 
true drama from the universal mediaeval device of 
rhetorical, homiletic dialogue. 

Much more real importance attaches to three dra- 
matic fragments discovered at Shrewsbury in 1890. 
Each of these pieces gives the speeches of a single actor 



6 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

in a play, partly English and partly Latin, dealing re- 
spectively with the Adoration of the Shepherds, the 
Resurrection, and the Journey to Emmaus. Though 
the manuscript which contains them has been referred 
to no earlier date than the commencement of the fif- 
teenth century, these three broken survivals seem the 
best existing illustration of theatrical conditions in 
England, during the long dark period of transition 
from the Latin dramatized liturgy to the play of native 
speech and character.^ 

Genuinely national drama shows itself first in Eng- 
land, in the fourteenth century, and it owes its exist- 
ence in the form in which we find it to two apparently 
quite irrelevant circumstances. The first is the estab- 
lishment by Pope Clement V, in 1311, of the Thursday 
after Trinity Sunday as the feast of Corpus Cliristi,^ in 
recognition of the theory of transubstantiation. This 
festival, occurring in early summer, two months after 
Easter and ten days after Whitsunday ,was everywhere 
a day of popular celebration, and it became in England 
the period par excellence for dramatic performances. 
Nearly all the cyclical mystery plays were destined for 
presentation either on Corpus Christi Day itself, or 
during the previous week of Whitsuntide. 

The second alien influence which shaped early Eng- 
lish dramatic convention was the rise of the trade 
guilds. During the whole career of the mystery play, 
these self-governing corporations of Bakers, Barkers, 
Butchers, and so forth, largely dominated the civic poli- 

' For an admirable study of liturgical dramatic origins, see F. W. 
Cady, "The Liturgical Basis of the Towneley Mysteries," PubL 
Mod. Lang. Assoc, 1909. 

^ Ineffectively promulgated by Urban IV in 1264. 



SCRIPTURAL AND MIRACLE DRAMA 7 

cies of all the important towns. At the earliest period 
from which it is possible to trace the consecutive history 
of English drama — that is, in the first half of the 
fourteenth century — we find that the production and 
performance of plays had already passed, for the most 
part, out of the hands of the clergy and into those of the 
guilds. Parish plays did still exist, particularly in the 
smaller villages, where presumably the guild system 
had been relatively little developed, '^ and, for special 
reasons, in the city of London. There are, too, indi- 
cations of the acting of mystery plays by strolling 
companies of professionals, such as commonly pre- 
sented moralities. But those features of the mystery 
play, which have most significance for the evolution of 
the later drama, arc particularly the outgrowth of the 
artistic method and the treatment of life inaugurated 
and maintained in the guild performances. 

There are still extant, either in full or fragmentarily, / 
mystery plays acted during the fourteenth, fifteenth, 
and sixteenth centuries by the trade guilds of Chester, 
York, Wakefield, Coventry, Norwich, and Newcastle. 
These remains make up in volume, as well as in histori- 
cal significance and inherent merit, by far the most 
important existing portion of the English Scriptural 
drama. Guild plays of similar nature, well authenti- 
cated by records, but unfortunately not known to sur- 
vive, were acted at Beverley (Yorkshire), Aberdeen, 
Canterbury, Lincoln, Hereford, and in many other 
places. As regards the Wakefield cycle, preserved in 

* See the interesting notes of expenditures for dramatic per- 
formances preserved in the Church-wardens' Accounts of Yarmouth 
and Bungay between 1462 and 1591, quoted by L. T. Bolingbroke, 
Norfolk Archaeology, xi (1892), 334-338. 



8 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

the famous Towneley manuscript, few details con- 
cerning the manner or date of performance are at 
hand. All the others named above were presented 
on Corpus Christi Day, with the exception of those 
of Chester, Norwich, and probably Lincoln, where the 
production seems to have been pushed forward into 
the preceding week of Whitsuntide, or else deferred, as 
at Lincoln, till St. Anne's Day (July 26). 

Of English mystery plays the Chester cycle appears 
to be the oldest in date of composition, as it is certainly 
the youngest in the matter of manuscript authority. 
There is very respectable evidence for the belief that 
the Chester performances began as early as 1328, and 
that the text presented in that year was prepared by 
no less a writer than the famous Ranulph Higden, 
author of " Polychronicon." ^ If this theory is correct, 
Higden must stand forth as both the first and the last 
literary personality, who can be at all reasonably cred- 
ited with the composition of English mysteries. The 
Chester plays are extant in five manuscripts, dating 
from the period 1591-1607. The two other sets of 
guild plays which survive in fairly complete form, 
those of York and Wakefield respectively, are each 
preserved in a single mid-fifteenth-century text. The 
composition of the York cycle has been referred to 
about 1350, while that of the Wakefield group, which 
in originality and literary value marks the highest 
reach of English dramatic writing in this kind, is 
ascribed with much probabiUty to the opening decades 
of the fifteenth century. 

* In defence of Higden 's authorship, see E. K. Chambers, Mediw- 
val Stage, ii, 348 ff and, in particular, S. B. Hemingway, English 
Nativity Plays, 1909, xix ff. 



SCRIPTURAL AND MIRACLE DRAMA 9 

Of the ten plays which originally made up the genu- 
ine Coventry cycle, only two exist, transmitted in six- 
teenth-century versions: the one, acted by the Shear- 
men and Tailors, dealing with the Birth of Christ and 
the Slaughter of the Innocents; the other, that of the 
Weavers, presenting Christ before the Doctors in the 
Temple. From the Norwich cycle, as from that of 
Newcastle, we possess only a single play. The records 
of the Grocers' Company of the former city preserve 
two versions, dated 1533 and 1565 respectively, of the 
drama acted by that guild, the subject being the fall 
of man and expulsion from Paradise;^ while from the 
Newcastle sequence there remains the play of the build- 
ing of the ark, assigned, with the rather fantastic ap- 
propriateness usual in the distribution of subjects, to 
the guild of the Shipwrights. 

The guild performances introduced many very im- 
portant innovations in the staging of religious drama. 
The species had originated in the Church, and while 
performed by the clergy, seems nearly always to have 
been presented, either in the sanctuary itself, or on the 
holy ground adjoining. We know little or nothing of 
the causes and manner of transference from Church to 
guild, except that it was gradual. Church performances 
certainly existed in many places by the side of guild 
performances, and the ecclesiastical authorities of 
several towns enjoyed a practical, as well as a theoreti- 
cal control, over the lay actors. The result of the 
change, however accomplished, was a great increase 

' These texts were first printed, with valuable extracts from the 
giiild book by R. Fitch, Norfolk Archaeology, v (1859). A list of the 
twelve Norwich pageants, of which the Grocers' alone survives, is 
given by H. Harrod, Norfolk Archaeology, iii (1852), 3-18. 



10 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

both in the number of players and in the number of 
spectators; and at the same time, probably, the loss of 
the old place of presentation, which, even if retained, 
could hardly have sufficed for the increased demands. 
It was a matter no longer of a religious exercise by 
parish clergy, before a congregation of the righteous, 
but rather of a spectacle offering scope in the produc- 
tion for the rivalry of all the city crafts, and having as 
a public the whole motley and congested population of 
a mediaeval town on fair day. 

The usual solution of the difficulty was the develop- 
ment of the individual pageant and the processional 
style of acting. The "pageant" was, in its simplest 
form, a stage on wheels, provided and decorated by 
one of the town guilds for the exhibition of the particu- 
lar portion of the Scripture story assigned to that guild. 
Ordinarily, there were two floors: the upper, an open 
platform where the play was acted; the lower, an 
enclosed dressing-room for the actors. The various 
pageants naturally differed in appearance, according to 
the taste and wealth of the guild which furnished 
them, and also according to the nature of the scene to 
be staged upon them. So the pageant of the craft of 
fishermen, presenting Noah and the flood, would be 
formed into a rough simihtude of the Ark, while those 
used for scenes where devils were to appear would have 
the passage between dressing-room and stage adorned 
with the conventional representation of "hell-mouth." ^ 
Altogether, in general shape and use, and in the ar- 
rangements for their building and up-keep, the guild 

* The third (Glaziers') pageant in the Norwich procession was 
entitled "Hell Cart," and payments were made by this guild "for 
keeping of fire at Hell Mo[u]the." Cf. Norfolk Archwology, iii, 12. 





TUMOROUS SKETCHKS OF 14"! CENTURY PAGEANTS, WITH THEIR AUDIENCES 

Illustrations from a French MS. (Bodley 2G4), probably compiled on English soil 



SCRIPTURAL AND MIRACLE DRAMA 11 

pageants manifest some analogy to the rows of barges 
maintained on Lsis or Cam, by the different colleges of 
Oxford and Cambridge. If we remember the former to 
be vehicles on wheels rather than boats, and conceive 
them small enough to be drawn by eight or ten guild 
members through narrow mediaeval streets, there will 
probably be even a certain similarity of appearance. 

In the palmy days of the mystery play — through 
the fifteenth century and the first half of the sixteenth 
— every guild was required to support a pageant, 
either independently or, in the case of the less pros- 
perous bodies, in connection with others; and every 
craftsman was taxed annually for "pageant pence." 
On the other hand, those members who acted parts in 
the plays, as well as those detailed to draw the pageant, 
received fees in proportion to their services. Dilatory or 
careless guilds, and actors who failed to learn their 
parts, were fined. The average cost per capita to the 
guild members of a play-acting city may have been 
from twopence to eightpence a year, — no very incon- 
siderable sum in 1450. Certainly there was incessant 
grumbling over what was increasingly felt to be an 
exaction, and constant appeals were made to the cor- 
poration for relief or redistribution of the burden. 
The end of the Norwich Grocers' Pageant, about 1570, 
is probably representative of the ultimate fate of all. 
This structure, described as "a Howse of Waynskott, 
paynted and buylded on a Carte, with foure whelys," j 
and adorned with a gilt griffin, was on the discontinu- 
ance of the annual performances stored with one John 
Sotherton in London, till, the charges having reached 
the sum of twenty shillings, and the vehicle having be- 
come rotten and unsalable, Sotherton's heir, Nicholas, 



12 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

was jiuthorized to reimburse himself by knocking it to 
pieces. ' 

In some towns a single performance of the cycle in a 
public place was regarded as sufficient. Such seems to 
have been the practice at Canterbury and Norwich. 
But more generally, as at Chester, York, Beverley, 
Newcastle, and (Coventry, it was found necessary, in 
order to reach all the multitudinous spectators, to re- 
peat the performances at each of a number of stations, 
in different parts of the city. The pageants moved in 
procession from one appointed stopping place to the 
next, and found an audience gathered at each. Thus, 
the pageant of the guild first in order, presenting 
normally the fall of Lucifer and the creation of man, 
would give its play at station one, and then move to 
station two for a second performance, while the 
pageant next in order would be acting before the spec- 
tators at the first station the next scene in the Bible 
story — say, the killing of Abel. The lociis classicus con- 
cerning the appearance and use of the guild pageants 
is found in the words of Archdeacon Rogers of Chester 
(d. 1595), preserved in two British Museum manu- 
scripts (TIarley 1948 and 1944), and first quoted in 
Thomas Sharp's " Dissertation on the Coventry Mys- 
teries " in 1825. Rogers defines the pageant as "a high 
scaffold with two rooms, a higher and a lower, upon 
four wheels. In the lower they apparelled themselves, 
and in the higher room they played, being all open on 
the top, that all beholders might hear and see them. 
The places where they played them was in every street. 
They began first at the Abbey gates [i. e., in Chester 
performances] and when the first pageant was played, 
» Cf. Norfolk Arcka-ology, v (1859), 31. 



SCRIPTURAL AND MIRACLE DRAMA 13 

it was wheeled to the high cross before the Mayor, and 
so to every street, and so every street had a pageant 
playing before them at one time, till all the pageants 
for the day appointed were played, and when one 
pageant was near ended, word was brought from street 
to street, that so they might come in place thereof, 
exceeding orderly, and all the streets have their 
pageants afore them all at one time playing together; 
to see which plays was great resort, and also scaffolds 
and stages made in the streets in those places where 
they determined to play their pageants." 

The guild plays deserve the especial attention of the 
student of the drama, because in the matter of stage 
practice, and in the development of certain comic ideals 
and types, their influence upon later dramaturgy is 
paramount. The rivalry between the different crafts 
in the decoration and costuming of their respective 
pageants produced, naturally, a lavishness of expendi- 
ture and a taste for gorgeous, if anachronistic, stage 
finery, quite beyond the imaginings of the simple 
church performers or the itinerant actors of moralities. 
When the Elizabethan drama sprang new into existence, 
during the last quarter of the sixteenth century, it 
took over, with little change or conscious development, 
the properties, the scenic effects, and much of the stage 
business which the guild actors had evolved. The rela- 
tion on the purely literary side is much more remote, 
but in respect of the externals of stage management, 
there is no doubt that the drama of Elizabeth is influ- 
enced throughout its career by the popular taste and 
aesthetic standards, developed during the two preced- 
ing centuries by the most elaborate dramatic enter- 
tainments of that period, — those presented by the 



14 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

guilds at Corpus Christi. Extensive records of the ex- 
penditure for mise en scene are extant in the guild 
books of Coventry, Chester, Beverley, Norwich, and 
elsewhere; and these form a most illuminating coun- 
terpart to the similar entries in the famous diary of 
Shakesjx^are's con^mporary and rival stage-manager, 
Philip Henslowe. 

The same emulation between the guilds, which im- 
pelled each to vie with the rest in the gorgeousness of 
I its pageant and the splendor of its costumes, led them 
also to bid for popularity in another manner significant 
for the history of the later drama. The Scriptural 
plays, while acted within the church, can hardly have 
contained many avowedly humorous touches, though 
certain germs of comedy may be detected, as we have 
seen, from almost the very start. In the hands of the 
guilds, however, the plays were relieved from imme- 
diate ecclesiastical supervision, and the temptation 
was strong for each craft to make the most of the dra- 
matic possibilities of the scene allotted to it. In most 
cases, buffoonery was felt to possess a surer hold on the 
attention of the spectators than pathos, and every 
comic hint was eagerly improved. With the main 
figures in the Bible narrative, few such liberties could 
be taken. Cain, Noah, Joseph, Pilate, and Herod 
offered most scope for humorous treatment. But the 
greatest opj)ortunity for the comic writer lay in the de- 
velopment of minor characters, to which the Scripture 
ascribes no distinct personality ; and here we find aris- 
ing and maturing, among the artless crudities of dra- 
matized religion, a comedy of real life, which not only 
kept the guild plays alive, in the face of violent muni- 
cipal and ecclesiastical hostility, long after they had 



SCRIPTURAL AND MIRACLE DRAMA 15 

lost every other hold on their public, but which passed 
easily and with unimpaired vitality into the later 
drama. The "garcio" or servant of Cain, the wife of 
Noah, Pharaoh king of Egypt, Augustus Caesar, the 
shepherds of the nativity, the torturers of the cruci- 
fixion, Lucifer, Antichrist, and the demons of the final 
judgment, are all figures concerning whose character 
the Bible has nothing, or very little, to say. Here, 
then, the fledgling drama might try its wings, unre- 
strained by respect for authority or fear of hetero- 
doxy. 

In the insertion and treatment of comic incident we 
find the most significant differences between the vari- 
ous extant cycles, and here we can perceive the first 
hints of the all-important change from the workings of 
impersonal, popular tendencies to the conscious art 
of an easily recognizable, though nameless, dramatic 
genius. Of the extant cycles, that of York contains the 
least comedy, not so much probably because the text 
of these plays seems to be a little earlier than that of the 
rest, as because the clerical censorship of the guild per- 
formances is known to have been considerably more 
strict in the archiepiscopal city than elsewhere. The 
Chester plays, as we have them, represent an advance 
in freedom upon those of York, and contain a few 
scenes of good fooling, but they bear little relation to 
the other cycles, and have been regarded by some 
critics as an imitation from French sources.^ The 
Coventry Shearmen-Tailors' play of the Slaughter of 
the Innocents introduces a Herod of well-developed 
comic proportions, who, as a stage direction informs us, 

^ See, in opposition to this theory, S. B. Hemingway, op. cit. 
xxiv ff. 



16 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

"ragis in the pagond and in the strete also," and who 
seems half independent of the serious story. Equally 
advanced is the humor of the Newcastle Shipwrights' 
play, where the devil enters, with his customary shout 
of "Out, out, harro, and welaway," to work mischief in 
Noah's household by arousing the suspicion and per- 
versity of tJie patriarch's shrewish wife. 

Rustic clownage comes finally into its own in the 
Waketield or "Towneley " cycle, where the serious nar- 
rative is often little more than a peg upon which 
to hang farcical sketches of braggarts like Pharaoh, 
Herod, and Augustus; or satire on contemporary po- 
litical and social conditions, as in the Judgment Day 
scene between Tutivillus and his companion demons; 
or else rtwlistic studies in north-country peasant life, 
such as the garcio of Cain, Noah's obdurate wife, or the 
numerous shephertl t^'jx's. It is in this last genre, so 
characteristic of his district, that the Wakefield master- 
dramatist has secured his greatest triumphs. Pike- 
harnes, the garcio. or plough boy, is a good yokel type, 
free of tongue and fist ; but the shepherds are pictured 
with even greater sympathy and local color. Two 
sepiarate. alternative versions of the shepherd scene 
exist, totalling more than twelve hundred lines. In 
both sketches the gospel matter is ignored through 
at least three quarters of the play by reason of the 
author's interest in the character and conversiition of 
his well-individiuilized shepherds. The second play, 
the celebrated "Sevninda [Paginal Pastorum." carries 
us indeed well out of the province of Scriptural drama, 
and into that of pure comedy, presenting English liter- 
ature in the episode of Mak. the sheep-stealer. with a 
native farce, which is not only the first extant example 



SCRirTURAL AND MIRACLE DRAMA 17 

of this species, but which, in the handling of suspense 
and climax, is unequalled by any work of the next cen- 
tury and a half. 

In connection with the guild plays just discussed, it is 
necessary to consider the so-called "Ludus Coventriai," 
generally counted as adding a fourth great mystery 
cycle to those of Chester, York, and Wakefield. In a 
number of important particulars, however, the " Ludus 
Coventria; " stands alone, and in the present doubtful 
state of our knowledge concerning it, tends rather to 
obscure than to clear up the dramatic history of the 
time. There is no satisfactory ground for connecting 
this series of plays with the town of Coventry, where 
we know the guilds to have possessed and acted a very 
different set of performances. It may, indeed, be re- 
garded as certain that the " Ludus Coventrise " was not 
acted by guilds, and that it was exhibited, not in the 
processional manner usual with those bodies, but upon 
the large stationary platform, with separate "sedes," 
which was essentially only a reproduction out-of-doors 
of the original mediteval stage, i. e., the nave and choir 
of the church. Such fixed stages are well known in con- 
nection with the Cornish religious plays of the four- 
teenth century, and they are represented in their most 
elaborate development in the sketch which illustrates 
the mise en scene of the first complete English moral- 
ity, " The Castle of Perseverance." In many ways the 
*' Ludus Coventrise," standing quite apart from the con- 
temporary guild cycles, forms a most interesting con- 
necting link between the early Scriptural drama as 
presented in the Church — a species very scantily ex- 
tant in England — and the morality plays in which 
strict religious didacticism came more and more to 



18 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

express itself in proportion as it was supplanted by 
secular elements in the guild jjerforniances. 

The manuscript of the "Ludus Coventrice" is dated 
1468, and belongs, therefore, to the same period as 
those in which the York and Wakefield plays are pre- 
served. As might be expected from the fact of station- 
ary presentation, the individual scenes of the ** Ludus 
Coventria' " are not so distinct as those of the pro- 
cessional cycles, where each scene was produced by a 
different company of actors and on a separate pageant. 
The present cycle falls most naturally into four or five 
large groups of scenes, many individuals of which 
cohere almost indissolubly, though the groups as a 
whole have only the roughest connection with each 
other. Between two of these grou})s, indeed, an inter- 
mission of an entire year is assumed; that is, the period 
from Ihe crealioii lo the betrayal was covered in one 
year and thai from the trial of Christ to Doomsday in 
the next. In treatment of subject matter the " Ludus 
(yoventria^" bears more afhnity to the German passion 
plays of the fifteenth century, such as that of Alsfeld, 
than to the other English cycles. The didactic purpose 
is here ])redominant, and the most notable feature of 
mediaeval religion, the worship of the Virgin, is given 
an extraordinary prominence in fifteen plays, which 
trace her history from her conception and birth to her 
assumption. The "Ludus C\)ventrite," indeed, is no 
more destitute of comic touches than the contemporary 
liiblical plays of Cicrmany and France; and some of 
the humorous scenes, such as the coarse one between 
the detractors in the trial of Joseph and Mary, are 
vigorous and realistic. But the comedy is always inci- 
dental: it never allows the reader to lose sight of the 



mnpo 







SCRIPTURAL AND MIRACLE DRAMA 19 

religious significance of the scene; it contributes little 
or nothing to the growth of independence in the con- 
struction of plot and character. 

An interesting feature of the "Ludus Coventrise," 
unparalleled in the other cycles, is the occasional in- 
troduction of allegorical figures, after the manner of 
the morality. Contemplacio serves as prolocutor and 
chorus through a large part of the work; Mors appears 
in person to slay Eang Herod; and one play even intro- 
duces a perfect little morality in the debate of the vir- 
tues Misericordia, Veritas, Justitia, and Pax, before the 
three persons of the Trinity.^ Here we find the explana- 
tion of the existence, side by side, during the first half of 
the Tudor period of the mystery and the morality; for 
we can understand how, as the guilds came more and I 
more to secularize and appropriate to comic uses the Ij 
old Scriptural drama, religious orthodoxy was driven to It 
abandon that theme, and seek expression in the newer / 
allegorical form, — there also to be ultimately expelled.' 

We are not sure of the precise circumstances under 
which the " Ludus Coventriee " was acted. The cycle is 
introduced by an argument, spoken by three vexilla- 
iores, or advertising agents, who make little mention of 
the more theological portions, and promise, by impli- 
cation, at least, that the whole play (intended accord- 
ing to the text for performance in two parts in con- 
secutive years) shall be presented " A Sunday next — 
At vi. of the belle — In N. towne." Various interpre- 
tations have been hazarded, particularly for the phrase 
'*N. towne." Northampton and Norwich have both 
been suggested, with no very great plausibility; but the 

* The abstract figures of Dolor and Misery are similarly intro- 
duced into the later (1565) version of the Norwich Grocers' Pageant. 



20 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

safest hypothesis seems still to be that *'N" {nomeii) 
means simply that the name of any town was to be in- 
serted, according as circumstances might require. It 
appears to me most probid)lo that the " Ludus Coven- 
tria^ " was composed originally under the auspices of 
some religious body, for acting at some fixed place, one 
half biMug presented each year; and that it later fell 
into the hands of a strolling company, such as ordi- 
narily acted moralities, for whom was written certainly 
the prologue, and not improbably some of the comic 
buffoonery as well. 

FifttxMith- century Scriptural drama, produced in 
a[)pareut independcncv of tiie guild convention, is fur- 
tlier exemplified in several miscellaneous survivals. A 
Bodleian uuimiscript in a northerly dialect (E Museo 
!()()) preserves "a play to be playede, on part on gud- 
friday after-none, & the other part opou Ester day after 
the resurrtvtione, in the morowe." The subjects are 
those nu>st appropriate to the period of performance. — 
the deposition from the cross and resurrection; and 
the treatment emphasizes everywhere the devotional, 
rather than the ilramatic possibilities of the theme. 
No tratx^ of humor appears, nor even the slightest 
knowledge oi the principles of stage presentation; and 
the earlier part of the play, which the scribe terms as 
a whole a "treyte [treatise] or meditatione," Sivms 
to have been originally composed in narrative form. 
Far the most striking and poetic division of the work 
is its version of the " IMauctus Maria\" or lamentation 
I of the Virgin over the Saviour's dead body; and this 
passage, rmming to 180 consecutive lines, is conceived 
altogether in the spirit of the contemporary religious 
lyrics on the same subject, with one of which it even 



SCRIPTURAL AND MIRACLE DRAMA 21 

shares its effective refrain: "Who can not wepe, com 
lorn at me." ^ 

Two unconnected plays on the st ory <if Abraham and 
Isaac manifest a far hif^licr reach of dramatic power 
than the "Burial and Resurrection," just mentioned; 
but they are ec^ually devoid of humorous matter or 
other trace of secular contamination, and there is no 
evidence that either belonged at any time to a cycle. 
APhese little dramas, consistinj^ of '{6J) and 405 lines 
jbach, are generally designated as the Dublin and the 
l|Brome play, from the respective localities where the 
■'manuscrij)ts are preserved. It seems likely, however, 
that the title is in both cases entirely misleading, in so 
far as the original place of performance is concerned. 

The Trinity C-ollege, Dublin, manuscript (D IV. 18), 
which contains the one play, can be assigned by the 
nature of its varied contents to the later years of 
Henry VI (ca. 1458). The inclusion of a. list of the may- 
ors and bailiffs of Northami)ton points to the neigh- 
borhood of that town as the district in which the manu- 
scrii)t was comi)iled; and the evidence of dialect and 
spelling in the play itself, strongly supports the idea 
that it originated, not in the vicinity of the Irish city, 
where the only text happens to have found lodging, but 
in one of the midland comities of England. 

It may well be that the chance which connects the 
other play of "Abraham's Sacrifice," with the remote 
numor of Bromc on the borders of Norfolk and Suf- 
folk, is as arbilrary as that which dictated that the 
Northampton (?) play should come to light in Dublin. 
It is true that the late fifteenth-century Brome manu- 
script is shown by its interspersed local accounts to 
1 Cf. Furnivall, Ilymnn to Virgin, 18G7, lid, 127. 



22 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

have been written upon the spot to which its name 
refers it. Yet the damaged metre of the play as there 
presented, together with the early spirit of the piece, 
show that the lironie scribe cannot have been the 
original author. So, the striking similarity between the 
central portion of tlie play (11. 114-315) and the cor- 
responding lines in the Chester guild version of the 
same subject, make it fairly impossible to believe that 
the entire breadth of England can have interposed 
between the conception of the two works. This close 
verbal parallel between the Chester and Brome plays, 
proving either direct influence or a common source, is 
the more noteworthy because it is the only ijistance in 
which any immediate connection between the different 
dramatic renderings of the Abraham story can safely 
be assumed. Attempts have indeed been made to re- 
late each of the three versions of Dublin, Brome, and 
C'hester to a French original, but as yet with no con- 
vincing result. 

The Dublin and Brome plays are the finest of the 

Isix Middle English dramas, dealing with Abraham 
and Isaac. Quite distinct in form and treatment, they 
both rank among the most gravely affecting individual 
specimens of Scriptural drama; and both seem to have 
taken their rise in the early epoch, before the influences 
of cyclical combination and secular performance had 
weakened the intlependent character and the moral 
earnestness of the separate play. 

The Dublin text — the shorter of the two by a hun- 
dred lines — is decidedly the more discursive in its 
method. It introduces the figure of Sara, who does not 
elsewhere apjx^ar, and considerably elaborates the 
parts of the angel and "Deus." The stage directions 



SCRIPTURAL AND MIRACLE DRAMA 23 

indicate a large, fixed stage, presenting four different 
localities: Heaven, the ground before Abraham's 
house, the place where Abraham and Lsaac leave their 
servants, and the place of sacrifice. At least five, prob- 
ably six, scenes can be marked (1-34, 35-83, 84-135, 
136-159?, 160-317, 318-369), and the stage directions 
infer a carefully planned mode of presentation.^ 

In the Brome play, attention is concentrated almost 
wholly upon the two main figures, and the feelings of 
father and son are depicted with a pathos and truth- 
fulness nowhere surpassed, perhaps, in the drama of this 
era. The piece is pretty obviously intended for the same 
fixed stage employed by the Dublin play, but no such 
are is shown in the discrimination of separate scenes 
or the indication of changes of locality. Rather, the 
means of effective stage action arc to a great extent 
ignored in the ardor with which the unknown author 
pursues his main object in the delineation of filial 
piety and sel^ess devotion to the divine will. For this 
very reason, the Brome play, in spite of its probably 
maimed and sophisticated text, remains a finer dra- 
matic achievement than the other piece. It is, indeed, 
the most favorable example extant of the capabilities 
of pure religious drama, as yet unmixed with any 
secular element, and innocent of knowledge concerning 
the tricks and limitations of practical stagecraft. 

One last piece of English Scriptural drama demands 
consideration, — the very interesting play of Herod 
and the Slaughter of the Innocents, preserved in a 

* E. g., "Et vadit angelus ad terrain et expectat usque dum 
Habraham dicit," 11. 34, 35; and "Et equitat [Abraham] versus 
Saram et dicit Sara : — 

" ' A, welcome soucreigne, withouten doute ; 

How haue ye fared whils ye haue ben oute ? ' " 11. 318, 319. 



24 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Bodleian manuscript (Digby 133) ascribed to the first 
years of the Tudor era. This drama is distinctly in- 
tended for representation on a fixed stage, and pre- 
sumably under ecclesiastical patronage, for the Pro- 
logue states that the performance occurs on St. Anne's 
Day, in remembrance of the mother of the Virgin. On 
the previous year, we are told, the same company had 
acted " in this place " the nativity, with the joy of the 
shepherds and the three kings of the East; while the 
Epilogue announces the intention " the next yeer, as we 
be purposid in our mynde, The disputacion of the 
doctours to shew in your presens." Minstrels and vir- 
gins arc referred to as contributing to the "solace" of 
the audience and the reverence of God, — in what way 
/ exactly we are not told. This Digby play, often referred 
1 to as " Candlemas Day," ^ is perhaps the most formally 
\ perfect mystery extant, though certainly not com- 
\ parable in genius with the best work of the guild 
'cycles. The verse is evidently the production of a se- 
rious scholar, probably a cleric and presumably the 
"Poeta " who speaks the words of the Prologue and 
Epilogue. The metrical form is the same throughout: 
eight-line stanzas, with the comparatively diflScult bal- 
lade arrangement used by Chaucer in the "Monk's 
Tale." Alliterative effect is also introduced carefully, 
though not consistently. The humor is good, but much 
more staid than in the guild plays of equal development . 
Herod boasts and threatens with a reserve of kingly 
dignity; and a useful stock type appears in Wat kin, 
the cowardly courtier who sets out to earn knighthood 
by slaying the innocents, but suffers an ignominious 
beating from the distaffs of their mothers. The stage 
* Collier reads, " Childermas Day," ed. 1879, ii, 156. 



SCRIPTURAL AND MIRACLE DRAMA 25 

directions in this carefully prepared text, like those in 
the two other important plays in the same manuscript, 
throw some light on the mode of presentation on the 
fixed platform, used for the church mysteries and the 
moralities. This stage, presumably round, is divided 
into a number of segments representing, one the court 
of Herod, another the house of Mary and Joseph, an- 
other the open place where the children are slain, etc. ; 
and the actors "go visiting," as in children's games, 
from one to the other. After Herod has given orders 
for the execution of the babes, we are told: "her the 
knyghtes and watkyn walke a-bought the place tyll 
Mary and Joseph be convied in-to Egipt." Conse- 
quently, we have interpolated the scene in which the 
angel warns Mary, the making ready of the ass, and 
the departure of Joseph and Mary with the infant 
Jesus. Then the knights and Watkin, who have mean- 
time been walking about the " place " (platea), or open 
part of the platform, not assigned particularly to any 
locality, turn toward the mothers and begin the Slaugh- 
ter of Innocents. 

All the plays so far discussed belong to the class 
commonly called " mysteries " ; that is, they are, or pur- 
port to be, dramatizations of events described in Holy 
Scripture. The term "mystery" has in this sense no 
authority. It seems to have been first employed, in 
1744, by the original editor of Dodsley's "Collection 
of Old Plays," who invented it as a cognate of the 
French " mystere," the usual name of a Scriptural 
play. During the period when the religious drama 
flourished in England, we find such works alluded to 
simply as "plays" or "pageants," or else more techni- 



26 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

cally as "miracles," Nevertheless, the exotic title of 
Dodsley is worth retaining, because it permits us to 
differentiate between the type of drama hitherto 
treated, based always, though sometimes remotely, on 
the Bible story; and a sufficiently different type to 
which the name "miracle" is properly applied. 

These last plays are sparsely extant in England, but 
are known from records to have been once common, as 
indeed might be inferred from the circumstance of their 
lending their specific name to the entire category to 
which they belong. * Miracle plays, properly so called, 
present the life of some saint, or depict some prodigy 
wrought in behalf of religion. Most frequently they 
have nothing to do with the Old or New Testament; 
and the nature of the subject matter, looking always 
toward a sensation in the shape of a miracle or con- 
version, would seem normally to foster a more roman- 
tic and independent treatment than the grave and 
sacred character of the Bible itself would easily allow. 
The first miracle play known to have been acted in 
England is a lost "Ludus de Sancta Katarina," written, 
according to the thirteenth-century chronicler, Mat- 
thew Paris, by one GeoflFrey, a Norman, later Abbot of 
St. Albans, and acted soon after 1100 at Dunstable in 
Bedfordshire. Costumes for the performance were bor- 
rowed from St. Albans, and accidentally destroyed 
by a conflagration in Geoffrey's house. The actors of 

• The earliest recorded allusion to the performance of non- 
liturgical plays in England refers to miracle plajs in the strict 
sense: "Lundonia pro spectaculis theatralibus, pro ludis scenicis, 
ludos habet sanctiores, representationes miraculorum quae sancti 
confessores operati sunt, seu representationes passionum quibus claruit 
constantia martyrum." See Collier, ed. 1879, i, 11. 



SCRIPTURAL AND MIRACLE DRAMA 27 

this piece were schoolboys, and Geoffrey, their master, 
in training them for his drama, was anticipating the 
practice of Nicholas Udall and many another Eliza- 
bethan pedagogue or choir director. The language of 
Geoffrey's Ludus was presumably Latin, possibly 
French; English it can hardly have been. It is possible 
that English drama may have a like indirect claim to 
the three miracle plays of Geoffrey's contemporary, 
Hilarius, written in Latin with occasional Norman- 
French insertions. 

Far more important, however, than any of these 
is what seems to be the first extant miracle fragment 
in the English vernacular, — the fourteenth-century 
"Dux Moraud," preserved in a Bodleian manuscript, 
to which attention has only recently been directed.^ 
This piece is a true theatrical document, containing the 
lines of a single player, for whose exclusive use it was 
evidently prepared, but giving no hint of the speeches 
of the other dramatis personce. The manuscript 
stops, naturally, with the last words of this particular 
character, at a point considerably antecedent, it would 
seem, to the end of the play as a whole, and thus con- 
tains no allusion to the culminating wonder, with which 
the drama must have closed. Fortunately, the subject 
of this precious torso is so familiar from contemporary 
narrative versions, that it is easy to conjecture the 
general substance of the missing portion. The theme is 
the Apollonius of Tyre story of paternal incest, and it 
is the father who speaks the 268 lines preserved by 
chance. After two long stanzas invoking the audience 
to avoid "janglings" and noise, the actor introduces 
himself: "Duk Morawd I hot be name, Korteyser lord 
* The text was first printed by W. Heuser in Anglia, 1907. 



28 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

may be none. " He then takes affectionate leave of his 
wife, who is about to set out on a journey, and prays 
Jesus to save him from "wykyt thowtes" during her 
absence. Later speeches indicate his fall first into 
guilty desire and then into actual sin, with his resultant 
connivance at the murder of his wife and his daughter's 
child. In the midst of his satisfaction over the removal 
of the.se obstacles to secret guilt, he hears a bell ringing 
" yendyr in the kyrk." He betakes himself thither, con- 
fesses to the priest, and vows a penitential pilgrimage. 
He takes leave of his daughter with pious admonition, 
but that remorseless sinner, angry at his defection, 
hands him over to an unspecified kind of death; and 
his last speech announces : — 

" Now my Ij'f wyl pase 
Fro nie this ilk stonde — 
Icsu ful of gras 
For-geue the this trespas 

That thou ast don to me, 
& geue the gras to blyn [cease] 
Of that wykyd syn 

Quylk [which] thou ast don so fre — 
lesu haue mercy on me, 

& saue my sowle fro helle ! " 

So ends the fatlier's part, but the pious author of the 
play could hardly have been content to leave the 
daughter in a reprobate state. The story was a favor- 
ite with mediaeval homilists, and is related in at least 
three early English metrical versions, which tell how 
the daughter, upon slaying her father, journeyed into 
another country, where, after a life of continued sin, she 
was delivered from the devils within her by the godly 
preaching of St. Augustine. She confessed fier crimes, 



SCRIPTURAL AND MIRACLE DRAMA 29 

and died of remorse, whereupon a voice was heard to 
announce from above: — 

" The sowle of this synfull wyght 
Is now in heuyn lyght 
Before Jhesu cryst so dere." ' 

Somewhat similarly we must conceive the play to have 
ended. Certainly the daughter was the main character 
of the piece. It is she who performed the murder of 
mother and infant, who sacrificed even her repentant 
father; and it must have been her miraculous or semi- 
miraculous redemption, to which the author looked for 
the climax and conclusion of his drama. 

Of complete English miracle plays in the strict sense 
there are known only three, all preserved in manu- 
scripts which date either from the opening of the Tu- 
dor era or from the generation immediately preceding. 
Probably the earliest of these, and certainly the purest 
representative of the type, is the " Play of the Conver- 
sion of Sir Jonathas the Jew by Miracle of the Blessed 
Sacrament," which the introductory " banns " announce 
the intention of acting "At Croxton on Monday." 
Seven distinct Croxtons contend for the honor of hav- 
ing inspired this most rare specimen of the early drama, 
and it is at present possible only to assign it vaguely 
to some locality of that name in the English Midland. 
The date must be subsequent to 1461, in which year 
occurred, as we are told, the miracle celebrated by the 
play. The Croxton drama has for its purpose the asser- 
tion of that late mediaeval d.octrine of transubstantia- 
tion, which Corpus Christi Day was set apart to sol- 
emnize, and which thus proved indirectly so fateful in 

1 Cf. Herrig's Archiv, 79 (1887). iU. 



30 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

the development of the guild cycles. The plot shows 
how Sir Aristorius, a merchant of Eraclea in Aragon, is 
bribed by a most unchristian Jew, Sir Jonathas, to 
steal the Host from the altar. Sir Jonathas proceeds, 
with his four Israelitish servants, to maltreat the wafer, 
which bleeds, causes Sir Jonathas the loss of his arm, 
and finally assumes the form of the Saviour himself, 
converts the unbelievers, and returns again to the 
shape of bread. The staging of this play is elaborate, 
and illustrates well the development which the non- 
processional drama had attained by the commence- 
ment of the Tudor period. Separate portions of the 
platform are set aside to represent the house of Aris- 
torius, that of Jonathas, and the church. The rest of 
the stage is unallotted territory where all parties may 
meet to transact business, or where, if they like, char- 
acters not acting at the moment may walk about with- 
out appearing to see what is going forward. One notes 
a considerable amount of stage property and some 
most remarkable effects. Aristorius walks from his 
house to the church, apparently pretends to unlock the 
door, and takes the Host from within. The house of 
Jonathas contains a practicable table, caldron, and 
oven, and the stage directions make demands whose 
fulfilment one would much like to have elucidated. In 
one place we are told: "Here the (H) Ost must blede; " 
in another, "Here shall they pluke the arme, & the 
hand shalle hang styllewith the Sacrament," a picture 
of horrid realism which suggests the plucking off of 
Faustus's leg by the horse courser. Later a stage di- 
rection announces, "Here shall the cawdron byle, ap- 
peryng to be as blood"; and the most puzzling of all 
testifies to illusion of no simple order: "Here the ovyn 



SCRIPTURAL AND MIRACLE DRAMA 31 

must ryve asunder & blede owt at the cranys, & an 
image appere owt with woundis bledyng." The Crox- 
ton play contains some respectable hunior of the n 
morality type, notably in the figure of Coll, servant to /' 
the quack physician, Mr. Brendych of Brabant.^ 

Two other works may be associated with that just 
discussed as being, at least in part, "miracles." They 
are the Digby plays of "The Conversion of St. Paul" 
and " Mary Magdalene." The former is based on the 
"Acts of the Apostles," but is certainly to be regarded 
rather as a miracle play than as a mystery. It treats 
the early adventures of the apostle with the great- j 
est imaginative freedom, focussing interest upon his | 
miraculous conversion, and closing with a perfunctory | 
account of his escape over the walls of Damascus. Of 
the matters with which the mystery writer would most 
engage himself, should he choose such a subject, — 
Paul's services to Christianity, his journeys, and final ^/ 
martyrdom, — there is only the barest trace. The play 
was most probably written for performance on the 
Festival of the Conversion of St. Paul (January 25), 
and was presumably acted under the patronage of the 
Church. Like the other Digby plays, this is a work of )' 
conscious literary art. It is full of introductions, con- 
clusions, and interpolations of the Poeta (Miles Blome- 
field, if we are to believe a manuscript note) who apolo- 
gizes for the pretended roughness of his almost painfully 
precise and careful little drama with all the mock 

' The quack doctor and his servant were long favorite figures in 
popular drama. Cf. Bachelor Jonkyn, the comical quack's assistant, 
in the Cornish drama of The Life of St. Meriasek (MS., 1504), and 
the doctors in the Oxfordshire and Lutterworth St. George plays 
(reprinted Manly, Specimens, I). 



32 THg TUDOR DR/VMA 

modesty of the niodorn rhyinoster. The mode of acting 
of this i>lay is somewhat puzzling, since, instead of 
being presented continuously on a single platform like 
others of its class, it is divided into three distinct 
"stations," corresponding \\ith the acts in a modern 
drama. The separate prologues and ei)ilogues to each 
station wouKl suggest some processional form of acting, 
and this hypothesis seems almost confirmed by the 
words of the Poeta at the end of the first station: — 

"(Tyiiiilly of tliis stiiron wo mak ii eoiu-lusyoii, 
bosoc'tiyiijj lliys audyotis to folow and succede 
witli all your dolygous this geiuTall processyon." 

Perhaps the fact that the speech in which these lines 

occur is marked as optional ("Poeta — si placet") may 

be taken to indicate that the play was destined for 

; presentation, either continuously on a single stage, or 

1 in three parts, as circumstances might require. 

"The Conversion of St. Paul" abounds in comic 
juatter, introduced into the historical plot in a fashion 
neither more nor less logical than that which charac- 
terizes the early Elizabethan writers of histories and 
tragedies. After the Poet's invocation and address to 
the audience, Saulus enters "goodly besene in the best 
wyse lyke an aunterous knyth [adventurous knight]," 
brt\ithing threats against the Christians. He secures 
letters from Caiaphas aiul Aniuis in view of his jour- 
ney to Damascus, and then the stage direction notes: 
"here goyth sale forth a lytyll a-syde for to make hym 
redy to ryde," leaving opportunity for a bout of low 
badinage between his servant and the hostler. The 
second station, in which the stage is divided between a 
number of localities, presents Saul's vision, conver- 
sion, and baptism. The third introduces, probably as 



SCRIPTURAL AND MIRACLE DRAMA 33 

a late interfjolation, a council of devils who learn with 
roars and cries the desertion of theirchampion Saul, and 
resolve to attempt his death. The rest is dull stuff 
apparently uncongenial to the writer, who breaks off 
abruptly and sums up the conclusion in an epilogue. 

One of the most significant monuments of early 
English dramatic literature is the long, rambling, and 
only sporadically readable play of " Mary Magdalene," 
which combines in a remarkable fashion the types of 
mystery, miracle play, and morality. The fifty-two 
scenes were all presented on the same stage, portions 
of which seem to have been made to represent eleven 
different places, ranging from Hell to the court of 
Ca;sar and the kingdom of Marcylle.* The literary pre- 
tensions of all the Digby plays become particularly 
evident in this, the longest of the .series, which, if the 
last two lines of the Epilogue are to be taken seriously, 
must be regarded as the first closet drama in English 
history: — 

" I desyer the rerlars to be my frynd, 
Yff ther be ony amysse, that to amend." 

Notwith.standing this appeal to the reading public, 
which may, indeed, have been added by the .scribe who 
made the Digby copy, we must suppose the play in- 
tended for actual presentation. The first jjart of the 
work is predominantly of the mystery type. Tiberius 
Csesar, Ilerod, and Pilate are introduceTT in the popu- 
lar braggart role, which was by this time become the 
conventional stage mark of a ruler. Then Mary's his- 
tory is presented: her father's death; her fall, life in sin, 

' A conjoetural plan of the stage used for the performanee of Mary 
Magdalene wUi be found in V. E. Albright's Shakgperian Stage. 



34 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

repentance; her washing of Christ's feet in the house 
of Simon the Leper; the death and recall to life of her 
brother Lazarus; finally, her experiences on the morn- 
ing of the Resurrection. The second portion of the 
drama, which partly overlaps the first, is pure miracle 
play. It narrates the conversion by Mary of the 
heathen king and queen of Marcylle after several 
spectacular miracles; the subsequent pilgrimage and 
adventures of these energetic converts; Mary's retire- 
ment into the wilderness and saintly death. The pic- 
ture of the heroine's alienation from virtue, which is 
probably the most dramatic portion of the work, is an 
almost perfect example of the moraljty.play embedded 
in a foreign setting. Mary's temptation comes as the 
result of a conference between the great allegorical 
dignitaries, the World, the Flesh, and the Devil, who 
from their retainers, the seven deadly sins, depute 
Lechery to decoy her into evil. Lechery entices her vic- 
tim into a tavern, where in an excellent scene of low 
realism, Mary yields to the love of the gallant Curiosity. 
In range and workmanship "Mary Magdalene" is 
probably a very fair sample of the drama at the begin- 
ning of the Tudor epoch. It is evident that by this time 
not only the frankly secular guild plays, but also the 
more conservative sort of drama, which in a sense con- 
tinued the ecclesiastical tradition and influence, had 
come to assert artistic independence, and even in some 
.cases a distinct literary consciousness. Comedy min- 
gles everywhere with tragedy in a league unbroken till 
the Restoration; while in the miracle plays the drama 
enters a third rich field of wonder and romance, equally 
remote from the serious realism of Biblical history and 
from the comic realism of village life, but productive 



SCRIPTURAL AND MIRACLE DRAMA 35 

in future of some of the greatest triumphs of the 
mature theatre. Stagecraft and stage business have 
attained considerable development and established 
permanent conventions, both on the normal fixed and 
sub-divided platform, and in connection with the more 
gorgeous processional pageant which resulted from the 
exigencies of guild presentation. Most significant of 
all, the "Ludus Coventriai" and "Mary Magdalene" 
both show well-developed morality plays arising out 
of mysteries. The concrete figures of the primitive re- 
ligious drama are losing their vividness for playwright 
and for public, and tend either themselves to pass into, 
or to give place to, moral abstractions. The Herod, 
Pilate, and Joseph of Skelton's time and Shakespeare's 
were felt as types, not men, and the ascendancy of the 
typical in religious drama meant, of course, the tri- 
umph of the morality, to which it is time that we turn 
our attention. 

One last important consideration remains to be em- 
phasized. The mystery play, particularly as repre- 
sented in the great guild cycles, is the only form of 
English literature which passed essentially unaltered 
through the early sixteenth-century welter of Renais- 
sance and Reformation. Those drastic reformers of 
life and letters, Erasmus, Colet, Wyatt, Surrey, Crom- 
well, and the rest, scattered broadcast new influences 
and new ideas, but they did not disturb the tranquil 
conservatism of the Corpus Christi plays. In 1572, 
the mayor of Chester, John Hanky, "would needs 
have the Playes (commonly called Chester Playes) to 
go forward, against the wills of the Bishops of Canter- 
bury, York, and Chester"; and his successor. Sir John 
Savage, in 1575, "caused the Popish Plays of Chester 



36 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

ti) be played the Sunday, Munday, Tuesday, and 
Wednesday after IMid-soninier-day. in eontenipt of an 
Inhibition and the Primats Letters from York, and 
from the Earl of Huntington." What had been good 
doetrineto Ranulph Tligilen in llV28had become pesti- 
lent iieresy in the course of two and a half centuries, 
but the burghers still demanded the old diversion, 
and they got it in the old form till a newer one was 
ready. 

We know that several of the most popular scenes in 
the mystery cycles had alreatly established themselves 
in universal favor and familiarity, when Chaucer was 
writing the "Canterbury Tales." In the Miller's Tale 
the ptH^t alludes to the horse-play between Noah and 
his wife: — 

"'Hastow nat luTil," quod Nicholas, 'also 

. . . ' 

The sorwo of N'lV with his folawshipo. 

Er that ho misihto J^"to his wyf to shipe ? 

Him hiu\ he lovor. I dar wol undortake. 

At thilko tymo, tlian alio hiso wethort>s blake. 

That she haddo had a ship hir-self allono.'" 

And of another of the lovers of the fair Alisoun, he says 
in the same tale: — 

"Sonitymo, to showo his lisihtnosso and maistrye. 
Ho ployoth Horodos on a soatTold hyo." 

Wliat Chaucer had setm, we cannot doubt that Shake- 
s[x\ire had also seen, and the antics of the unfortunate 
Absolon can hardly ha\e varied nuich from those of 
the actors, detested o( llamlet, whom Shakespeare liad 
seen out-IIeroding Herod on the guild pageants of 
Coventry and the boards of a somewhat more ad- 
vancinl London stage. 



SCRIPTURiVL AND MIRACLE DILVMA 37 

We are accustomed to think of the EHzabethan 
drama as a great mushroom growth, evoked over-night, 
as it were, by special conditions due to Renaissance and 
Reformation and half a dozen other new impulses. 
And such it truly was. We shall find it enormously 
cosmopolitan in its origins, and in its interests ex- 
traordinarily contemporary, even ephemeral. This 
was the character of the age, and it affected other 
branches of literature in equal measure. But when we 
come to estimate the sources whence the Elizabethan 
drama derives the particular vigor and depth of root 
which it possesses above all the other literary forms of 
the time, who shall say just how potent was the fact 
that the drama alone could boast, through the guild 
plays, an uninterrupted descent from English literature 
of the Middle Ages ? These plays, orally presented 
throughout the country year after year, form the only 
real bond of sympathy between the English public of 
Shakespeare's youth and the great English public of 
Chaucer's day. Through them passed into the drama a 
wealth of tradition and sentiment elsewhere intercepted 
by changes of language, religion, and education. To 
the conservatism and tenacity of the guild perform- 
ances Elizabethan drama owes a goocl deal of the un- 
conquerable national quality, which enabled it to as- 
similate larger j)ortions of foreign matter than any 
other literary type of the day and yet remain the most 
essentially English of them all. The guild plays thus 
did much to save the drama from that unfortunate dis- 
continuity generated by the upheavals of the early six- 
teenth century, which in the other branches made it 
impossible for Spenser properly to appreciate Chaucer 
or for Ascham to sympathize with Malory. 



38 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 
GENERAL WORKS OF REFERENCE 

Bates, Katharine Lee : The English Religious Drama, 1893. 

Cambridge History of English Literature, vols, v, vi, 1910. 

Chambers, E. K. : The Mediceval Stage, 1903. 

Collier, J. P. : The History of English Dramatic Poetry to the 
Time of Shakespeare : and Annals of the Stage to the Restora- 
tion, 3 vols., 2d edition, 1879. 

Courthope, W. J. : History of English Poetry, 1895-1905, vols, 
ii-iv. 

Creizenach, W. : Geschichte des neueren Dramas, 1893-1910 
(4 vols.). 

Hazlitt, W. C. : The English Drama and Stage under the Tudor 
and Stuart Princes, 154.3-1668. Illustrated by a Series of Docu- 
ments, Treatises, and Poems, 1869. 

Herford, C. H. : Studies in the Literary Relations of England 
and Germany in the Sixteenth Century, 1886. 

Jusserand, J. : Le Theatre en Angleterre, Paris, 1878, new ed., 
1881. 

: A Literary History of the English People, 3 vols., 

1895-1909. French ed., 1896-1904. 

Kelly, "W. : Notices Illustrative of the Drama and other Popular 
Amusements, chiejly in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, 
1865. 

Klein, J. L. : Geschichte des Dramas, 1865-76, vols, xii, xiii. 

Lee, Sidney : The French Renaissance in England. An Ac- 
count of the Literary Relations of England and France in the 
Sixteenth Century, 1910. 

Malone, "B. : An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress 
of the English Stage, and of the Economy and Usages of 
our Ancient Theatres. Shakespeare's Works, ed. 1790, vol. i, 
part 2. Enlarged version in Boswell's Malone, 1821, vol. iii, 
together with Farther Account by George Chalmers (pp. 410- 
522). 

Frblss, R. : Geschichte des neueren Dramas, 3 vols., 1881-83, 
vols, i, ii. 



SCRIPTURAL AND MIRACLE DRAMA 39 

Schelling, F. E. : Elizabethan Drama, 1558-1642 . . . with 

Resume of the Earlier Drama, 2 vols., 1908. 
: English Literature during the Lifetime of Shakespeare, 

1910. 
Symonds, J. A. : Shakspere's Predecessors in the English 

Drama, 1881. 
Ten Brink, B. : Geschichte der englischen Litteratur, revised by 

A. Brandl, 1893. Translated, H. M. Kennedy, 1883. 
Ward, A. W. : History of English Dramatic Literature to the 

Death of Queen Anne, 2d ed., 3 vols., 1899. 
Warton, Thomas : History of English Poetry from the Twelfth 

to the Close of the Sixteenth Century, 4 vols., 1791-81. Ed. 

W. C. Hazlitt, 1871. 

IMPORTANT COLLECTIONS OF TEXTS FROM THE 
TUDOR PERIOD 

Amyot, T., and others : A Supplement to Dodsley^s Old English 
Plays, 4 vols., 1853. 

Brandl, A. : Quellen des weltlichen Dramas in England vor 
Shakespeare. Ein Ergdnzungsband zu Dodsley's Old English 
Plays. " Quellen und Forschungen," Ixxx, 1898. 

Bullen, A. H. : A Collection of Old English Plays, 4 vols., 
1882-85. 

Child, F. J. : Four Old Plays, 1848. 

Collier, J. P. : Five Old Plays, 1851. Reprinted, Hazlitt's 
Dodsley, vi. 

: Illustrations of Early English Popular Literature. 

(Dilke, C. W.) : Old English Plays, G vols., 1814-15. 

Digby Plays : (Contents of the Bodleian MS., " Digby 133.") 
Printed Th. Sharp, Abbotsford Club, 1835; F. J. Furnivall 
(together with a play of The Burial and Resurrection from 
another MS.), Neto Shakespeare Society, 1882, reprinted, 
E. E. T. S., 1896. Discussion: K. Schmidt, "Die Digby- 
Spiele " (Berlin dissertation), 1884 : concluded in Anglia, 
viii (1885), 371 fE. 

Dodsley, Robert : A Select Collection of Old Plays, 12 vols., 
1744. Second ed., I. Reed, 1780. Third ed., J. P. Collier, 
1825-27. Fourth ed., W. C. Hazlitt (enlarged to 15 vols.), 
1874-76. The contents vary somewhat in each edition.* 



40 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Everyman's Library. " Everyman " with other Interludes, in- 
cluding Eight Miracle Plays, 1909. 

Everyman's Library. Minor Elizabethan Drama, ed. A. H. 
Thorndike, 2 vols. 

Farmer, J. S. : Tudor Facsimile Texts, 1907-11. (In progress.) 

: Early English Drama Society Publications. (A series 

of unauthoritative reprints.) 

Gayley, C. M. (general editor) : Representative English Come- 
dies, with Introductory Essays and Notes . . . by various writers. 
From the Beginnings to Shakespeare, 1903. 

Hawkins, Thomas :, T^he jDrigin of (he English Drama, Illus- 
trated in its various Species, viz. ': Mystery, Morality, Tragedy, 
and Comedy, by Specimens from our Earliest Writers, 3 vols., 
Oxford, 1773. 

Hemingway, S. B. : English Nativity Plays. " Yale Studies 
in English," xxxviii, 1909. 

Hurst, Robinson, & Co. (Publishers): The Old English Drama, 
2 vols., 1825. (A collection of eight plays with separate im- 
prints.) 

Litterarhistorische Forschungen. 

Manly, J. M. : Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama, 2 
vols., Boston, 1897. 

Materialien zur Kunde des alteren englischen Dramas. 
General editor, W. Bang. Louvaiu, 1902, etc. 

Marriott, William : Collection of English Miracle Plays or Mys- 
teries. Basel, 1838. 

Neilson, W. A. : Chief Elizabethan Dramatists, 1911. 

Old English Drama, 3 vols., 1830. 

Pollard, A. W. : English Miracle Plays, Moralities, and Interludes, 
Specimens and Extracts. Oxford, 1890. 6th ed., revised, 1909. 

(Scott, Walter) : The Ancient British Drama. In Three Vol- 
umes. Printed for William Miller. The editor's name no- 
where appears. 

Simpson, Richard : The School of Shakspere, 2 vols, (pub- 
lished posthumously), 1878. Also a separate pamphlet, con- 
taining A Larum for London, published under the same 
general title, 1872. 

Waterhouse, O. : The Non-Cycle Mystery Plays, together with 
the Croxton Play of the Sacrament and the Pride of Life. 
E. E. T. S., 1909. 



SCRIPTURAL AND MIRACLE DRAMA 41 

In addition to the above, the following academic periodicals 
and publications of learned societies are particularly valuable 
repositories of dramatic texts : — 

Anglia. 

Englische Studien. 

(Herrig's) Archiv fur das Studium der neueren Sprachen. 

Jahrbuch der deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft. (^Sh,-Jb.^ 

Shakespeare Society Publications (1841-53). 

New Shakspere Society Publications (1874-96). 

Malone Society Publications (1907, etc.). 

SPECIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY TO CHAPTER I 
GENERAL DISCUSSION 

Beatty, Arthur : The St. George, or Mummers' Plays ; a Study 

in the Protology of the Drama. Wise. Acad, of Sciences, Arts, 

& Letters, xv, pt. 2. 1906. 
Bolingbroke, L. G. : " Pre-Elizabethan Plays and Players in 

Norfolk," Norfolk Archaeology, xi (1892), 332-351. 
Cook, A. S. : "A Remote Analogy to the Miracle Play," 

Journal of Germanic Philology, iv, 421-^51. 
Davidson, Charles : Studies in the EnglisK Mystery Plays. 

Yale diss. 1892. 
Ebert, A. : " Die englischen Mysterien." Jb. fur rom. u. engl. 

Lit., i. 1859. 
Gay ley, C. M. : Plays of our Forefathers, 1907. 
Graaf, W. van der : " Miracles & Mysteries of S. E. York- 
shire " (Notes concerning Patrington & Hedon), Eng. Stud., 

36 (1906), 228-230. 
Greene, Antoinette : " An Index to the Non-Biblical Names 

in the English Mystery Plays," Studies in Honor of J. M. 

Hart, 1910, 313-350. 
Hohlfeld, Alexander : " Die altenglischen Eollektivmisterien 

unter besonderer Beriicksichtigung der Verhaltnisse der York- 

und Towneley-Spiele," Anglia, xi, 219-310. 
Hone, William : Ancient Mysteries described, especially the 

English Miracle Plays . . . London, 1823. 
Jusserand, J. J. : "A note on Pageants and ' Scaffolds Hye,' " 

Furnivall Miscellany, 1901, 183 ff. 



42 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Leach, A. F. : " Some English Plays and Players, 1220-1548," 
Furnivall Miscellany, 1901, 205 ff. 

Matthevrs, Brander : " The Mediseval Drama," Modern 
Philology, i, 71-94. 1903. 

Oliver, Q. : "A History of the Holy Trinity Guild at Sleaford, 
with an Account of its Miracle Plays, Religious Mysteries, 
and Shows, as practised in the 15th Century." Lincoln, 1837. 

Stoddard, F. H. : References for Students of Miracle Plays and 
Mysteries, 1887. 

Taylor, Q. C. : " The English Planctus Marise," Modem 
Philology, iv (1907), 605-637. 

Thien, H. : Uber die englischen Marienklagen. Kiel, 1906. 

Tisdel, P. M. : Comedy in the Mystery Plays of England. Har- 
vard thesis, 1906. 

♦' The Influence of Popular Customs on the Mystery 

Plays," Jrl. Engl, and Germ. Phil., v, 323-340. 

INDIVIDUAL PLAYS, TEXTS AND COMMENTARY 
I. Scriptural Drama 

1. SPECIMENS APPARENTLY ANTECEDENT TO THE FORMATION OF 
THE GUILD CYCLES 

(a) Specitaens of English " tropes." Contained in Regu- 

laris Concordia Monachorum (?967; by St. Ethan- 
wold?). Ed. W. S. Logeman, Anglia, xiii, 426-428 : 
Tlie Winchester Troper, ed. W. H. Frere. Henry Brad- 
shaw Society, 1894. Extracts are reprinted by 
Manly, Specimens, i, xix-xxvi. 

(b) Harro'wing of Hell. Extant in three MSS. Reprinted, 

parallel texts (with Gospel of Nicodemus), W. H. 
Hulme, E. E. T. S., 1907. Other editions : E. Mall, 
Berlin, 1871 ; Pollard, English Miracle Plays. Discus- 
sion : K. Young, " The Harrowing of Hell in Liturgical 
Drama." Reprinted from Trans. Wis, Academy, xvi, 
pt. 2, 1909. 

(c) Shrevrsbury Fragments. Printed W. W. Skeat, Acad- 

emy, Jan. 11, 1890 ; Manly, Specimens, i, 1897 ; Water- 
bouse, Non-Cycle Mystery Plays, 1909. Discussed W. 
W. Skeat, Academy, Jan. 4, 1890. 



SCRIPTURAL AND MIRACLE DRAMA 43 

(d) Cornish Drama. Norris, E. : The Ancient Cornish 
Drama (Cornish text of 3 mystery plays with transla- 
tion), Oxford, 1859, 2 vols. Discussion : Peter, T. C. : 
'« The Old Cornish Drama. A Lecture," 1906. 
Creation of the World. Cornish text and translation 
by Davies Gilbert, 1827. 

2. GUILD PLAYS 

(a) Cheater Cycle. MS. of Play 24 only (prompter's copy ?) 

ascribed to 1475-1500. 5 complete MSS. dated from 
1591 to 1607. MS. containing fragment of play 19 
printed Manchester Guardian, May 19, 1883. Ed. Th. 
Wright for Shakespeare Society, 2 vols. 1843-47. Plays 
i-xiii, ed. H. Deimling, E. E. T. S., 1892 ; remainder 
announced for 1911-12. Plays 3, 10, and Banns ed. 
J. H. Markland, Roxburghe Club, 1818. Discussion: 
J. H. Markland, " Chester Mysteries " (dated 1818), 
printed in vol, iii, pp. 525-549, of Boswell-Malone 
Shakespeare, 1821. H. Deimling : Textgestalt und 
Textkritik der Chester Plays, Berlin diss., 1890. H. 
Ungemach : " Die Quellen der fiinf ersten Chester 
Plays," Miinchener Beitrdge, i, 1890. 

(b) True Coventry Cycle. Two Coventry Corpus Christi 

Plays, ed. H. Craig, E. E. T. S., 1902. Other editions: 
Shearmen-Taylors' Pageant, Th. Sharp, 1817 and 
1825 ; Marriott, 1838. Manly, Specimens, 1897 ; A, W. 
Pollard : Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, 1903. Weav- 
ers' Pageant, J. B. Gracie ? for Abbots/ord Club, 1836; 
F. Holthausen : " Das Spiel der Weber von Coventry, 
i, Text," Anglia, xxv, 209-250, 1902. Discussion: 
Thomas Sharp : A Dissertation on the Pageants or 
Dramatic Mysteries Anciently performed at Coventry, by 
the Trading Companies of that City, Coventry, 1825 ; 
C. Davidson, Mod. Lang. Notes, vii. 184 ; A. R, Hohl- 
feld, Mod. Lang. Notes, vii. 318. 

(c) Newcastle Shipwrights' Play of Noah's Ark. Edi- 

tions : Henry Bourne : 7'he History of Newcastle-upon- 
Tyne, 1736 ; John Brand : The History and Antiquities 
of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1789 ; Th. Sliarp : Disserta- 



44 THE TUDOR DRAJVIA 

tion, 1825 ; F. Holthausen : Goteborgs Hogskolas Ars- 
skrift, 1897, vol. iii ; R. Krotanek : " Noahs Arche. Ein 
Misterium aus Newcastle-iipou-Tyne," Anglia, xxi 
(1899), 165-200 (Reprint of Sharp, with parallel "re- 
stored " text) ; O. Waterhouse : Non-Cycle Mystery 
Plays, 1909. 

(d) Norwich Grocers' Play of Adam and Eve. Two 

MS. texts (1533, 15C5). Editions : Robert Fitch, Nor- 
folk Archceology, v, 8-31, 1859 (both texts) ; J. M. 
Manly, Speci7nens, i, 1897 ; O. Waterhouse, Non-Cycle 
Mystery Plays, 1909. Discussion : Henry Harrod, " A 
Few Particulars concerning Early Norwich Pageants," 
Norfolk- Archceology, iii (1852), 3-18. 

(e) Wakefield (Towneley) Cycle. MS. long in library of 

Towneley Hall ; now in private possession at Ewell, 
Surrey. Editions : — Surtees Society, 1836 ; G. England 
and A. W. Pollard, E. E. T. S., 1897. Play xxx, F. 
Douce, Roxhurghe Club, 1822. Discussion : A. Bun- 
zeu, Ein Beitrag ztir Kritik der Wakefelder Mysterien, 
1903; F. W. Cady, "The Liturgical Basis of the 
Towneley Mysteries," Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc, 1909 ; 
M. H. iPeacock, "The Wakefield Mysteries. The 
place of representation," Anglia, xxiv (1901), 509 ; 
W. W. Skeat, " The Locality of the Towneley Plays," 
Athenceum, Dec. 2, 1893. A. Ebert : " Die engl. Mys- 
terien, mit besonderer Beriicksichtigung der Towne- 
ley-Sammlung " : Jb. f rom. u. engl. Lit., i, 44, 131. 
H. A. Eaton : Afod. Lang. Notes, xiv, 265, " A Source 
for the Towneley Prima Pastorum." J. Hugienin : 
Mod. Lang. Notes, xiv, 255, " An Interpolation in the 
Towneley Abraham Play." 
(/) York Cycle. Lucy Toulmin Smith, The Plays per- 
formed by the Crafts or Mysteries of York on the Day of 
Corpus Christi in the 14, 15, and 16 Centuries, Oxford, 
1885. Scriveners' Play of Incredulity of Thomas 
preserved in separate MS. belonging to York Philoso- 
phical Soc. Printed J. Croft, Excerpta Antiqua, 1797 ; 
J. P. Collier, Camden Misc. iv, 1859. Discussion : H. 
E. Coblentz, " A Rime-Index to the ' Parent Cycle ' of 
the York Mystery Plays and of a portion of the Wood- 



SCRIPTURAL AND MIRACLE DRAMA 45 

kirk (i. e., Wakefield) Conspiracio et Capito," Pub. 
Mod. Lang. Assoc, x (1895), 487-557 ; Craigie, W. A.: 
" Tije Gospel of Nicodemua and the York Mystery 
Plays," Furnivall Miscellany, 1901 ; O. Herrtrich, 
Sludien zu der York Plays, Breslau, 1886 ; F. Holt- 
hausen, " Beitrilge zur Erklarung und Textkritik der 
York Plays," Herrig's Archiv, 85 (1890), 411-428 (with 
" Nachtrage," Archiv, 86) ; " Zur Textkritik der York 
Plays," Phil. Stud. Festgabe fur E. Sievers, Halle, 
1896 ; Kamann, P., " Die Quellen der York-Spiele," 
Anglia, x, 189-226; E. Kcilbing, "Beitrage zur Er- 
klarung und Textkritik der York Plays," Engl. Studien, 
XX (1895), 179-220 ; K. Luick : " Zur Textkritik der 
Spiele von York," Anglia, 22, 384. 

3. 8CBIPTUBAL PLAYS APPARENTLY INDEPENDENT OP THE GUILDS 

(a) The so-called "Ludua Coventrlae" cycle. Edited by 

J. O. Halliwell, Shakespeare Society, 1841. Plays i-v. 
Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum. — Discussion : Ernst 
Falke, " Die Quellen des Sogenannten Ludus Coven- 
triae," Leipzig, 1908 ; Max Kramer, " Sprache und 
Heimat des sog. Ludus Coventriae," Halle, a. S., 1892 ; 

E. N. S. Thonopson, " The Ludus Coventriae," Mod. 
Lang. Notes, xxi (1896), 18-20. 

(b) Christ's Burial and Resurrection. Wright, Reliquae 

Antiquae, ii, 124, 1843 ; Printed in Dighy Mysteries, ed. 
Furnivall, 1882 and 1896. 

(c) Abraham's Sacrifice. Brome MS. — Editions : Miss 

L. Toulmiu Smith, Anglia, vii (1884), 316-337, and " A 
Commonplace Book of the Fifteenth Century," 1886 ; 
Walter Rye, Norfolk Antiquarian Miscellany, iii, 1887; 
J. M. Manly, Specimens, i, 1897; O. Waterhouse, Non- 
Cycle Mystery Plays, 1909. — Discussion : A. Hohlfeld, 
" Two Old English Mystery Plays on the Subject of 
Abraham's Sacrifice," Mod. Lang. Notes, v, 222-237; 

F. Holthausen, Anglia, xiii (1891), 361. 

(rf) Abraham's Sacrifice. Dublin MS. — Editions: J. P. 
Collier, "Five Miracle Plays," 1836(25 copies); R. 
Brotanek, " Abraham und Isaak. Ein ME Misteriuin 



t(5 VUV. n DOK niiVMA 

Aua oiiior Pultliucr lIiutdHohrift," Anglia, xxi (1800), 
lll-f>i\. - I>iu-msion : V. Pavuison, "Conoerniu^- 1mi)J- 
lUh Mvstory riiivs," .U.x/. l.ntttj. Ntttts, vii (tSO'J), 

(^) Candlemas (^ Childermas?) Day (,(>ltuighti>r of liuu>- 
ooiits). Pi!;l\v MS. AV/iriii/rt/ sffkinttflfi, Hawkins, vol. 
i, 1771^ ; Muvnolt, ISiW. 

II. MlUVll.K I>K.VM.i 

(<i) Dux Momud, " cincolrtillo aits oiiuMu vorlort<iu>i\ (Iniiiiii 

dos M. .III.." W. llousor. Aniflia, 'M {\W1). ISO «Y. 
(l>) Cioxtoii Play of tlio SMCXomeut. — Kiiitiong : Whitley 

Stokoa, I't^iitstictiimf I'hit. StH\, .\mHMuiix, 18(51; .). M. 

Maulv, vS'/>«\"MMf"«<<. i. 1807; O. WalorluMiso, A'<>ri-(\vW* 

.l/y>/frv /Vd.iy.N-, 11H>0. 
(r) Convri«icm of St, Putil. Pijil'v MS. Priit(f\i .w/Hi- 

niff."!/ ,• .1. M. Manly, Sttt^-tmats, i, 1807. 
((j) Thp Conversion of Maiy Magdalene. Digby MS. 

l\oi>nntoil in part l\v rolhinl. .Mtracir /V(iv.<. 
(f) Ivivst play of K<,niff luthar! of CU'f/ltjr, \Ai\\oi.\ at tlio lliijh 

(.Vvss, Chostor. UVJO. Stated to liavo l»eon prt^viously 

shown, in lloury VU's rt>i^n. Cf. Collior, i, 111-llJV. 

riay on vSjuuo subjoot aotoii Ht Lincoln, l4r>iV 
(/■) Coinlsh Miracle Drama. ThiT l.t/f of' St. Mfriastl; 

/»'k<Ai>;i i%>ui (\";r('.<."ti>-. Kd. with a Translation and 

KoU»jj by WluUey Stokes, 1872. 



CffAITKR H 

THJ-: hAHl,Y MOUAL/ry 

Wk have, f^tttw in Ui'; last <'h'A])br fiiut v/tion t li*; 'J'ljrJor 
era U;^ari, and for a Irjng tJrri'; afU^r, rnyHU;ry f>IayH, 
more or Icsh s^rriouHly «pi ritual in Uuu;, wi;vtt U;irig 
pnAwji'A [HrrirKJically at. York, Chcnit'.r, Cyoveritry, 
and in many rjt.hf;r lo<:alit.if;H. Then; was, t/j U; sure, 
alrcfi/iy a generous infunion in all the cycles of non- 
religious mat,t>;r, and the eonnr^.i.ion of |>reIaU; and 
players was growing more, and more t.hat. of the pro- 
verbial hen and gr^slings. Still, the break w;is not 
ojK^n, anfJ the sufK^rfleial hWihuca', fK;tween inyH\j(i:ry 
play and estafjiished religion outlived the llrrformation 
by wjveral (ifJtiuicH. 

\/BcHide the myHt<;ry there ha^J grown up, ijn-c'iv.ly 
whence or how no man can Hay, another form of reli- 
giou.H drama: the morjiJity or moral play, 'llut fiiffer- 
ence in the relation of the two tyjKis t^> the Church is 
great and -,ignifir:ant. The myHt./;ry was ba.s<;d on re- 
vealed religion: it hari to do with flesh and bl^Kxi char- 
arrUrrs of the Old and N<?w Tr^-ament, or in the ca^s^; 
of its off-shfK)t, the mira/:le play, with sufx^rtiuman 
manif<;Htations equally rjyucsclc, and for the U;lief of 
the time wpjally authentic. The f;on«;m of the morn]- « 
ity was with metajihysir-al the^)logy, with abstra/rt. 
conf:<;ptionH of gfKxl and evil, — with Vicjt:H and Virtues 
of past>f;-board, I)f!Sf>itr; the <jxi.stenw; of a little grxxJ 
work in a sombre and rather morbid vein, — the prolj- 
ably foreign " f>veryman," for example, — the strict 



48 TllK TUDOR DRAMA 

morality is u poor and tliin thing altogether. In its nat- 
ural state it was constructed from the cobwebs of the- 
oretical iliviuity, and it was inevitable that it should 
seek, even more than the sturdier mystery, to euro 
the anaMuia of life and character by taking to itself 
incn'asingly large portions of vulgar realism and bur- 
les(|ue. As il did so, il became both more robust and 

/ coarser. The two or three plots that belonged to the 
morality r(»])(M'toire were used over and over, with a 
siuiiller spirit Mul bias at each renovation, till hnally 
their secularization was complete, and they renuvined 
m<M-(>ly as props to support a su])erstructure of un- 
mi\(Ml farce. 

The debt of the later drama to the mystery consists 
in tlu' cultivation of general tastes and influences, 
rather than the cvi)lution t>f specific models. Hut the 
early moralities, shapeless for the most part and arti- 

f' ficial as they are, begin a tradition in KiUglish comedy, 

i which, though it was almost buried in the accretion of 
new elements, was not interrupted till the time of the 
Con\nu)nweallh at least. Tragedy, on the other hand, 
was early crowded out of the morality; and the prom- 
ise of the mystery with its many tragic potentialities 
-the promise also of the first stern moralities — came 
to nought. TIence the deplorable weakness of the 
{ I earliest Kll/.abcthan tragedy when compared with the 
■ vital, if barbarous, comeily of the same periiul (1558- 
1.58-)). 

The morality seems to be first mentioned under the 
titles of I'aternoster anil Creed plays,' and in this form 

' For il sliitomont of tl\o roliitii>iislup botwtvn stioli plivya and tlie 
foriniil iloclrino of tlio lioads of the iiorfluTU ohurcli, s(h> K. N. S. 
'flioinpson, Tlir F.iiylinlt Mora! IVaij.i, 88"i IT. 



THE EARLY MORALITY 49 

is of most respectable antiquity, — only half a century 
yoiin^(;r lli;in IIk; oMcst, rccordi'd rnystorics. W<; have 
Wyclifs word, supporUid by several lat(;r references, 
for the existence of u Paternoster Play " in Englisesh 
tijri^<;" at York in l'i7H. We kriowf;orieerninj^ \}\('. cori- 
teiiLs only that it was "a J'lay s(;tting f(jrth the j^ood- 
ness of the Lord's Prayer — in which play all rnanncT 
of vie(;s and sins wen; hehl up to scorn, aufl the virtues 
were held up to praise." A Oeed Play, enthusiastically 
described as " Indus incomparabilis," is mentioned in 
conri<!ction witli \.h<: siuuc. f)lay-lovirij^ f;ity in various 
y(;ars between 1440 and 15(58. Lincoln witn(;ss<;d a /v/- 
du.H de pater nosterm 1397-1398 and on a number of laUjr 
occasi(nis. At IJeverley, a city of lost f)lays, we l<;arn 
that a Paternoster play was j^iven in 1409, ap|>arently 
on an ambitious scale, since it was presented pro- 
cessionally in eight fjag<;arits to each of wliich four or 
more guilds were made contributory. One pageant was 
assigned to each of the seven dea^llysins, the last and 
most ela}>oratr; to "Vicious," by whom Mr. C'harnl>crs 
pn^sumes frail humanity (Everyman, Mankind, (ienus 
Humanum) to be typifi(;d. Perhaps this spectacle was, 
howev(;r, as much in the natun^ of tableaux as drama; 
it is hard to imagine how anything very similar to a 
morality play could be acted on eight separate stages. 
I*ossIbly the first s<!ven pagc^ants ref)res(;nU'd or fjic- 
tur(;d the triumph of seven virtues over their opposites, 
while the last in some way summarized the effects, and 
gav(; them human application. 

Sinc<; no <;xarn[il<! of these (;arly works has been [)re- '. 
Sfjrved, we know very little of the actual form which 
the morality took at its inception. Th(! occasir)n of its , 
origin, hf)wever, is not far to s(;ek. The morality is the ' 



// 



50 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

last expression of the great mediaeval taste for alle- 
gory. The mighty convention, which we can trace 
from its various beginnings in works like the "Psycho- 
machia " of the fifth-century Prudentius, or the machin- 
ery of the courts of love, to its ambitious maturity in 
the "Romance of the Rose," found its last refuge in 
the religious drama. By the time Chaucer had attained 
to manhood, the new realism of Italy had pretty well 
driven allegory from its place in fashionable literature, 
— never quite to regain it till modernized and re- 
vitalized by Spenser. As usual, the professed writers 
of didactics inherited the form and standards of taste 
which the more virile profane poets had outgrown. To 
understand the allegorical machinery of "The Castle 
of Perseverance," we have only to turn, on the one 
hand, to the siege of the Castle of Danger by the virtues 
in the "Romance of the Rose," and, on the other, to 
the great symbolic poems of "The Owl and the Night- 
ingale," and the "Debate of the Body and the Soul." 
But, of course, it is a case of contagion, not imitation: 
we can no more trace the morality back specifically 
to Prudentius or any single passage of Scripture than 
we can locate the final source of a mountain torrent. 
The earliest morality which has come down to us 
dates probably from the beginning of the fifteenth 
century. It is a fragment preserved in an Irish manu- 
script, but of southern English composition, and has 
been named in recent times "The Pride of Life." It 
treats the old theme of the coming of death, — a theme 
by which the mediaeval mind was peculiarly affected, 
and which offered either the starting point or the 
dramatic climax of nearly all the oldest moralities. 
"The Pride of Life" distinguishes itself noticeably 



THE EARLY MORALITY 51 

from the other members of the species by its verging 
toward the concrete. Instead of a single type of hu- 
manity thronged about by vices and virtues, as in 
"The Castle of Perseverance," we find here three dis- 
tinct individuals: a king, his queen, and a bishop, — 
all class types, to be sure, but not thoroughly symbolic, 
and not without personal touches. The play, which is 
written in quatrains, riming alternately, begins with 
a conventional exhortation to the out-of-door audience 
to keep peace and listen in spite of the weather. The 
manuscript breaks off before the catastrophe. The story 
concerns the opposition between the inevitable Death 
and the moral hero of the piece, "Rex Vivus," — 
a type of arrogant and comfortable feudalism much 
like the speaker in the "Dux Moraud" fragment. 
The contrast is brought out with considerable power, 
and several of the characters possess elements of life. 
The nuntius, or messenger, Mirth by name, foreshad- 
ows dimly the Vice of the later morality and the Eliza- 
bethan clown, though the comic side of his character 
is rather latent than expressed. 

From this fragment, richer in promise than in actual f 
fulfilment, we may turn to what is probably the earliest 
complete morality extant.^ "The Castle of Persever- 
ance," preserved with two other notable moralities in 
the famous Macro manuscript, is a truly formidable ' 
work of over thirty-six hundred lines, dating in its 
editor's opinion from about 1425; written in complex 
metrical forms, and adorned with all the musty alle- 
gorical ornament which the " Romance of the Rose" 
had familiarized. Yet it has indubitable dignity. Po- 
etically and structurally, it is a creditable produc- 
* An inconsiderable portion of this play is also lost. 



52 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

tion, and it is well worth careful study because of its 
richness of suggestion for the later drama. The plot 
is developed with a breadth of scope and massive ful- 
ness of detail, which inspire the reader's respect, even 
while they weary him. The story is the career of 
Man (Humanum Genus) from birth to final judgment. 
The infant, approached by an evil and a good angel, 
accepts the counsel of the former, who leads him 
to Mundus, the World. From Mundus he is sent to 
Covetousness, where he falls in with all the deadly sins. 
The Good Angel, however, with the aid of Shrift, ulti- 
mately secures his repentance, and lodges him for safety 
in the Castle of Perseverance, with the seven virtues 
for garrison. The powers of evil — the World, the 
Flesh, and the Devil — summon all their forces to a 
general assault, in which each vice is overthrown by its 
opposing virtue. Covetousness, however, succeeds in 
enticing Man from the castle into the world, where he 
falls again into sin and is at last overthrown by Death. 
Man's soul appeals to the Good Angel, who directs it 
to Mercy. The cause is tried before the " Pater sedens 
in throno," who decides, after a debate, in favor of 
the benignant virtues of Mercy and Peace, as against 
Justice and Truth, the accusers. 

It has been said that no direct relation can be estab- 
lished on the side of tragedy between the religious play 
and the Elizabethan secular drama. Sporadic evi- 
dences of kinship do occur, as in the analogy between 
the convention of the good and evil angels, who appear 
from time to time in the play we are discussing, and the 
very similar figures in Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus." ^ 

* The Good Angel interposes in a very similar manner in The 
Conflict of Conscience (cf. p. 000), and was doubtless a perfectly 



THE EARLY MORALITY 53 

Here, however, Marlowe has deliberately gone back, 
as he did in borrowing the masque of the seven 
deadly sins, to an archaic form of drama for the par- 
ticular purposes of one play. 

It was on the side of comedy that the influence of the 
moral play made itself permanently felt. Some of the 
figures in "The Castle of Perseverance" contain the 
germs of a species of farce, which was later to run a 
most illustrious career. " The Castle of Perseverance " y 
is, of course, an essentially serious work, but it is not" j 
purely serious, like "Everyman." It has much greater 
complexity of structure than the latter play. Death 
and his horrors are not always in our immediate pres- 
ence. On the contrary, the World, the Flesh, and the 
Devil, with their companion sins, occupy very impor- 
tant positions during the greater part of the drama, and 
they all have their amusing side. In the speeches of 
the different vices to Mankind (11. 1048 ff) we find 
much of that serio-comic use of the petty details of 
dress and demeanor, which appears so abundantly in 
Chaucer and "Piers the Plowman, "and which becomes 
purely comic in the work of Ben Jonson. In the lamen- 
tations of the vices over the wounds received in con- 
flict with the virtues, and in the physical chastisement 
administered by the World, the Flesh, and the Devil 
to their subordinates for allowing Mankind to escape, 
as well as in the preparations for war and boastful 
speeches of the besiegers of the castle, there lay matter 
for mirth which might be expanded and emphasized 

familiar stock figure. A study of the special relationship of Doctor 
Faustus to the English moral play is promised by E. N. S. Thompson. 
See Proceedings of the Modern Language Association of America, 
Central Division, 1910. 



54 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

almost ad libitum. And the stage directions show that 
the actors were by no means neglectful of these oppor- 
tunities. The character of Backbiter, or Detractio, 
alias Flypyrgebet, is a most notable development of 
the comic possibilities latent in the " nuntius " of "The 
Pride of Life." In his purely comic function and his 
equal alacrity to plague vice or virtue, Backbiter 
shows himself a true prototype of the later Iniquity. 
The directions for the staging of "The Castle of Per- 
severance" are unusually full, and they merit especial 
attention, because they show certain characteristic 
features of the Elizabethan theatre already well inau- 
gurated. At the end of the manuscript is an interesting 
sketch of the stage, with directions for acting. From 
this drawing and from the three less complex ones con- 
tained in the manuscript of the Cornish mystery cycle, 
eked out by the generous stage directions of the present 
play, "Mary Magdalene," and several others, it is 
possible to construct a very definite image of the type 
of stage used by the early morality players and the per- 
formers of the non-processional mysteries. Something 
has been already said on this subject, by way of anti- 
cipation, in discussing the play of "Mary Magdalene," 
which is perhaps half a century younger than the mo- 
rality now before us. ^ "The Castle of Perseverance" was 
played out of doors, on a green. The stage was circular, 
after the manner of the Cornish open-air theatres, and 
surrounded by water, " if any dyche may be mad, ther 
[i. e., where] it schal be pleyed." Otherwise, it was 
to be strongly barred all about, — evidently to keep 
the spectators from encroaching. Elizabethan laxity of 
discrimination between actor and spectator is suggested 
1 Cf. p. 33. 



•s i-s-^J 





> w 






O H > 

&. « ^ 






THE EARLY MORALITY 55 

by the direction: "let not over many stytelerys [i. e., 
stage-managers] be within the place," and the prohibi- 
tion that no men are to sit on the castle wall lest they 
obstruct the view of the rest, "for ther schal be the best 
[seat] of all." 

The castle itself occupies the centre of the stage. It is 
built upon posts or blocks in such a way that the lower 
part is hollow and affords room for Mankind's bed, 
under which, in the absence of curtains, the soul 
(Anima) has to lie concealed through three thousand 
and eight dreary lines, "tyl he schal ryse & pleye." 
Around the circumference of the stage, which, of 
course, would have spectators on all sides, are the five 
scaffolds or seats of the World, the Flesh, and the Devil 
(Caro, Mundus, Belyal), Covetousness, and God. The 
last, occupied by the " Pater sedens in throno " and the 
Virtues, seems to have been used only for the post- 
mortem part of the play, except that the Good Angel 
doubtless retired thither after his various ministrations 
to Mankind. During the whole of Mankind's life, the 
occupants of this scaffold would sit as impassive and 
ostensibly invisible spectators of all the business trans- 
acted on the other four scaffolds, in the castle, and the 
"platea," or unappropriated space between. 

There is every reason to believe that a continuous 
stage tradition subsisted and was passed on from one 
generation to another from the time when, in this play 
of "The Castle of Perseverance," it first comes defi- 
nitely before our eyes, till the end of the pre-Restoration 
epoch. It will be instructive, therefore, to look with 
some attention at certain features in the naanner of 
presentation of the work before us. Prefixed to the 
play, but really forming no essential part of it, is an 



56 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

interesting prologue spoken by two vexillaiores. It is 
the mediaeval substitute for the modern posters which 
announce the coming of a theatrical troupe. After 
ten long stanzas, recited alternately, in which the argu- 
ment of the intended play is given, the second vexil- 
lator makes the following announcement : — 

"These p>arcellis in propyrtes we purpose us to playe 
This day seuenenyt, be-fore you in sj'th [sight]. 
At — on the grene, in ryall a-ray. 

Ye haste you thanne thedyrward, syris, hendly in hyth. 
All goode neyboris, ful specyaly we you pray, 
& loke that ye be there be-tyme, luflBy & lyth, 
for we schul be onward be vnderne of the day." 

The first vexiUaior then takes leave in the following 
words: — 

"Ye manly men of — thus Crist saue you all! 
he maynten youre myrthis, & kepe you fro greve, 
that born was of Mary mild in an ox stall. 
Now, mercy be all — , & wel mote ye cheve." 

In the passages just quoted three blanks occur. 
The first, in the speech of "Secundus Vexillator," 
must obviously have been supplied by the name of the 
town where the performance was to take place, while 
the other two require rather the name of the place 
of proclamation. Evidently, the rexiUafores were dis- 
patched a week before each exhibition through all the 
I hamlets in the neighborhood of the selected village to 
summon an audience. Except for the changes wrought 
by the invention of printing and the present lament- 
able cheapness of paper and colored ink, the advertise- 
ment of a circus or fair in an agricultural community 
is now conducted in a surprisingly similar manner. 
It has been noted that a very similar announcement is 



THE EARLY MORALITY fi7 

prefixed to the so-called "Ludus Coventrise" which 
came to be acted, though not originally so destined, 
under circumstances probably identical with those we 
are discussing. 

It is of no little importance for the development of 
dramatic art in England that "The Castle of Perse- 
verance" was performed, as this prologue tells us, not 
like the great mystery cycles, in one particular place 
by resident members of various guilds, or by resident 
clerics, but by more or less professional actors in the/ 
way of business, before a number of villages in turn.1 
This seems to me the beginning of theatrical companies'^ 
in England. The manuscript informs us that there were 
thirty -six "ludores," and thirty -five speaking parts can 
be actually counted. Under the conditions of presenta- 
tion it is not easy to conceive much doubling of roles; 
and yet, if the company was really itinerant, it would 
probably have to be much smaller than this to ensure 
a satisfactory relation between expenses and receipts. 
It seems most likely that the strollers comprised only a 
nucleus of the company and that they drafted local 
amateurs for the minor parts in each place in which 
they acted, — a practice still adhered to in certain 
spectacular productions which require a great number 
of figures. This theory receives some support from 
Richard Carew's account of the manner in which the 
Cornish mysteries were presented in the sixteenth 
century: "The players conne not their parts without 
booke, but are prompted by one called the Ordinary, 
who foUoweth at their back with the booke in his hand, 
and telleth them softly what they must pronounce 
aloud." And he adds a story of a practical joke played 
on the Ordinary by a volunteer actor. 



58 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

The later moralities were usually performed by com- 
panies of four or five men and a boy, — the boy, of course, 
taking women's parts. These troupes, once formed, 
continued themselves in unbroken sequence till the 
Restoration. There seems no doubt that the strolling 
players of the Commonwealth who roamed from vil- 
lage to village with their contraband dramatic wares, 
after the suppression of the theatres in 1642, were the 
lineal descendants, and the inheritors of many a piece 
of traditional clownage and stage business from those 
who in pre-Tudor times performed "The Castle of 
Perseverance." The tradition thus established was one 
of comedy solely, as I have hinted. The tragic matter 
in the early moralities — the sometimes really affect- 
ing sense of the frailty of mortal man and the constant 
approach of temptation — was all gradually supplanted. 
The strollers followed the line of least resistance and 
greatest popularity, giving their rustic audiences what 
the latter best liked and what the actors might most 
readily improvise. Therefore, we find in the early days 
of Elizabeth a comic tradition so firmly rooted that 
tragedy might not stand against it. The old gags and 
witticisms of morality players force themselves not 
only into weak and colorless tragedies such as "Damon 
and Pythias," "Cambyses,"or " Appiusand Virginia"; 
they find unwelcome admittance, as it were in the 
teeth of Marlowe's defiance, into "Doctor Faustus" 
and "Tamburlaine." 

In the palmy days of Elizabethan drama the great 
companies, under the patronage of royalty or nobility, 
and under the direction of such men as Shakespeare, 
Burbage, and Alleyn, grew far beyond the slender 
promise of the troupes that acted "The Castle of Per- 



I 



THE EARLY MORALITY 59 

severance." But the difference is one of scale rather 
than kind. And there existed throughout the period of 
the great drama and great stage-managers a humbler 
sort of players, itinerant for the most part, and 
hounded unmercifully by the law, who seem to have 
represented a very slight advance in dramatic art 
over the actors of moralities. Throughout the Eliza- 
bethan age, plays appear to have been published for the 
express use of these strolling companies, — plays de- 
manding simple stage properties and a modest num- 
ber of actors. Thus, to specify one out of innumerable 
instances from the earlier period, the title-page of the 
transitional morality of "Horestes," published 1567, 
suggests a division of parts by which twenty-five roles 
can be filled by six actors: while in the play of "Muce- 
dorus" a full generation later the parts are similarly ap- 
portioned among eight players. So, too, the ineffably 
silly text of Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus," printed in 
1663, marred equally by timid excisions of passages 
touching on religion and by the addition of much 
puerile buffoonery, bears on its face the proof of hav- 
ing been prepared for illegitimate acting during the 
period of Puritan ascendancy. 

It is a mistake to suppose, as is often done, that the \ 
early morality stands on a higher plane in the matter 
of plot construction than the mystery. Theoretically, 
doubtless, it should have done so; the greater freedom 
of the morality from actual fact, the removal of the 
necessity under which the mystery stood of presenting 
specific Biblical incidents and characters in a particular 
sequence, ought perhaps to have made the plots of the 
moralities more flexible and various, — though the 
essential incompatibility in the drama of fact and fie- 



60 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

tion is rather an assumption than a certainty. Ulti- 
mately, to be sure, the mystery was out-distanced, but 
only after the morality proper had been supplanted 
by the "topical" and largely comic interlude. The 
primitive morality of the type of "The Castle of Per- 
severance" and "Everyman" is characterized by no- 
thing more than by its lack of ingenuity in the inven- 
tion of plots. Only three are to be found among the 
extant specimens of the strict morality. They were for 
the greater part borrowed from the fashionable litera- 
ture of the previous age, and the later moralities 
cribbed even more unblushingly from their predeces- 
sors. Plot and situation were handed on from one play 
to another with little other adaptation than resulted 
from the not invariable change of name of the charac- 
ters and the constantly increasing demand for comedy. 
The three distinguishable plots have been called the 
Coming of Death, the Conflict of Vices and Virtues, 
and the Debate of the Heavenly Virtues. The second 
is both greatly the most popular with morality writers 
themselves and the only one which contributed any- 
thing of much consequence to later drama. ^ 

"The Castle of Perseverance," the most comprehen- 
sive morality extant, contains and blends with con- 
siderable skill all these three plots. In it, therefore, is 
to be found the entire structural stock in trade of its 
type. The first part of the play culminates in the con- 
flict of the virtues and vices for possession of Mankind 
and the castle in which he has taken refuge, — a plot 
derived, as has been pointed out, from the older secular 

^ A valuable discussion of the various types of morality plots is 
contained in the introduction to R. L. Ramsay's edition of Skelton's 
Magnificence, E. E. T. S., 1908. 



THE EARLY MORALITY 61 

allegory. The second part of the play presents the dra- 
matic crisis in the coming of Death, and then, as the 
author is unwilling to accept a tragic conclusion, he 
appends (from line 3030 on) the debate of the heavenly 
virtues over Mankind's soul, and the final triumph of 
the powers of compassion. 

The huge scope of "The Castle of Perseverance" is 
thus evident. The single incident of the arrival of 
death, derived probably from the popular mediaeval 
representations of the Dance of Death, forms the sub- 
ject of "Everyman" and of the existing portion of 
"The Pride of Life." The only other example of the 
"Debate" plot — a belated off-shoot of the dehat so 
common and so successfully exemplified in early 
French and early English secular poetry — is to be 
found interpolated into the " Ludus Coventriae" mys- 
tery cycle. The history of the morality is really the 
history of the conflict-plot. It was this which offered 
the greatest amount of human interest, the greatest op- 
portunity for differentiation of character, and infinitely 
the largest scope for comedy. All the humorous ele- 
ments previously pointed out in "The Castle of Perse- 
verance" arise directly from the conflict of vice and 
virtue. 

The late fifteenth-century Macro manuscript, in 
which " The Castle of Perseverance " is preserved, con- 
tains two other moralities. Next in age and in length to 
that which we have been discussing, and decidedly the 
least interesting of the three, is the dainty, but cer- 
tainly not forceful play of "Mind, Will, and Under- 
standing," otherwise known as "Wisdom." The plot 
of this work is as much distinguished by its slenderness 
as is that of "The Castle of Perseverance" by its full- 



62 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

ness. The difference in content and intensity between 
these two pieces, separated in date of composition by 
possibly a generation, is most remarkable. In "Mind, 
Will, and Understanding" nothing whatever of any 
permanent consequence takes place, but the spectacu- 
lar effects are much the most elaborate to be found in 
any of the moralities. The piece is indeed more masque 
or ballet than drama. There are few indications of the 
mode of presentation; but it is noticeable that we have 
to do here with a stage on which the actors can appear 
and disappear, and that from a total of at least thirty- 
nine persons only six have speaking parts. These six 
may represent the five men and a boy of a travelling 
company, the ballet dancers being impressed each time 
from among the natives; but the character of the play 
does not suggest professional or even secular perform- 
ance. It seems to me much more likely to be a school 
production, where the dancers would, of course, be 
carefully trained scholars or choristers, and where the 
five chief male parts would be taken either by the mas- 
ters or by advanced pupils. It is to be noted that the 
piece is thoroughly orthodox throughout. There is a 
vast amount of good and somewhat tedious doctrine 
at the beginning and end, while the intermediate hu- 
morous portion, though to modern notions somewhat 
plain-spoken, is all put into the mouth of evil or cor- 
rupted characters and so accords perfectly with medi- 
aeval proprieties. 

The play is introduced by a long dialogue between 
Wisdom, or Christ, and the Soul. The Soul, subject to 
the two conflicting forces of sensuality and reason, is 
instructed to cleave to the latter, and for her guidance 
is presented with the five wits, — mutoe personoe dressed 



THE EARLY MORALITY 63 

as virgins, and three "mights," Mind, Will, and Under- 
standing. The good figures go out with operatic dance 
and song, leaving the stage to Lucifer, who appears 
"in a devil's array" to exclaim "Owt harow, I rore," 
and inform the audience of his malign intentions. He 
then departs, to reappear in the dress of a gallant and 
seduce Mind, Will, and Understanding, who have in the 
meanwhile returned. The "mights," easily corrupted 
to their respective sins of Ambition, Lust, and Avarice, 
entertain each other with spicy accounts of their for- 
bidden pleasures, till Wisdom enters with admonitions 
and points out the change their defection has made in 
Soul, who comes forward "in the most horrybull wyse, 
fowlere than a fende," with six small boys in the like- 
ness of devils running out from her mantle. At this 
spectacle the "mights" repent, whereupon the devils 
disappear, and the piece closes with a homily. 

The outstanding fact in the later history of the mo- ] 
rality is its decadence as an exponent of serious ideals. ' 
Already in the third of the Macro plays, "Mankind," 
a work dating probably, like the manuscript which 
contains it, from the last quarter of the fifteenth cen- 
tury, we find the whole moral machinery diverted to 
the production of buffoonery. Both in scope and in 
seriousness a great falling off is evident. This play runs 
to barely nine hundred lines instead of the thirty -eight 
hundred, approximately, of the complete "Castle of 
Perseverance"; and the reduction in comprehensive- 
ness is equally radical. Like the latter drama, "Man- 
kind" is clearly intended for professional and nomadic 
performance. We can even trace roughly the tour of 
the company through Cambridgeshire and Norfolk by 
the numerous local allusions. Many changes and de- 



64 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

velopments, however, can be noticed. The fixed out-of- 

I door stage of the first Macro play has been supplanted, 

I apparently, by the inn-yard, itself in turn the progeni- 

I tor of the Elizabethan popular theatre. Actors go on 

and off the stage in the modern manner, and the box- 

oflSce side of the business attains a prominence entirely 

novel. Half through the piece, the great master demon, 

Tutivillus, who has not yet appeared, is heard to shout 

from behind the scenes: "I com with my leggis vndur 

me," and the actors grasp the psychological moment of 

suspense to levy contribution : — 

"Now gostly to owur purpos, worschypfull souerence! 
We intende to gather mony, yf yt plese yower neclygence. 
For a man with a hede that is of gret omnipotens." 

The spectators are further assured that the great Tuti- 
villus 

"louyth no grotis [groats], nor pens or to-pens: 
Gyf vs rede reyallys, yf ye wyll se hys abhomynabull presens." 

And the collection begins "At the goodeman of this 
house," i. e., the inn-keeper. The change in the scene of 
action seems to have carried with it a change of season. 
The performances on the green could have occurred 
only in warm weather, but "Mankind" is a winter 
play, full of references to fires and cold. The reason for 
the shift is doubtless that which accounts in general for 
the great permanence of popular customs connected 
with Hallowe'en, Christmas, and other festivals of 
cool weather; namely, the fact that winter is in rural 
communities the season of leisure. It may be, too, that 
the strolling professionals found their poor efforts 
eclipsed in summer by the great spectacles of Corpus 
Christi and the like. 



THE EARLY MORALITY 65 

The numerous characters of "The Castle of Perse- 
verance "are reduced in "Mankind" to seven, three of 
which seem to be boys' parts, while the four men might 
be decreased to three by doubling the roles of Mischief 
and Tutivillus. It is significant that, of these seven 
figures, five are purely comic: the main vices, Tutivillus 
and Mischief, and the smaller fry. New Guise, Nought, 
and Nowadays. The original conception of the moral- 
ity is upheld only by the generalization Mankind and 
the single virtue Mercy ; nor do these two remain seri- 
ous throughout the play. They also are pressed into 
service in the author's attempt to satisfy the ever- 
growing thirst for comic situations. We are perhaps 
not obliged to follow Mr. Pollard ^ in assuming that the 
writer has consciously burlesqued the figure of Mercy. 
The comedy is probably as little intentional as that oc- 
casioned by the impossible heroics of the good people 
in a schoolboy melodrama. Still the humorous effect 
is unquestionable, and it shows how thoroughly alien to 
the spirit of this type of drama had become the moral 
didacticism from which it sprang. 

"Mankind" has as nearly as possible no plot; it 
touches no special part of the life of man, and it illus- 
trates no truth of character or religion. Its comedy 
is perfectly devoid of intellectual interest, consisting 
either of physical horse-play or such plebeian obsceni- 
ties as only archaism can render tolerable. It doubt- 
less represents very adequately the range of mental 
activity among the fifteenth-century rustics for whom 
it was written. It certainly manifests a most striking 
and melancholy kinship to the species of wit in vogue 
among the same public to-day, though now fortunately 
1 The Macro Plays, E. E. T. S. 



66 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

restricted to oral circulation. After "Mankind," the 
type of drama composed for village presentation runs 
a subterranean course. Indications of its continued 
existence abound, but we meet with no more examples 
of it till the Puritan revolution, sweeping away with 
the theatres all the more refined drama, brings to 
light again the rude amusements of the yokels. 
, The three plays of the Macro manuscript, the earli- 
est complete moralities extant, probably define very 
comprehensively the limits of this type of drama when 
Henry VII ascended the English throne. It is not to be 
supposed that the three varieties are at all incompati- 
ble. There was doubtless a public for each : one class of 
society would continue to support the elder and stricter 
form after another class had demanded and received 
such debased modifications as " Mankind. " The famous 
play of " Everyman," dating from about the commence- 
ment of the sixteenth century, would be conclusive 
proof of the sustained interest in the earliest type of 
morality if we could establish its English origin. All 
indications seem, however, to pronounce in favor of the 
Dutoh composition of this piece, — not least perhaps the 
fact that "Everyman" stands quite outside the tangle 
of indebtedness and influence which connects nearly all 
the nativeEnglish moral plays, and can be proved neither 
to have borrowed directly from its predecessors nor to 
have furnished an important hint to any of its successors. 
During the Tudor period the morality gained a po- 
sition in fashionable literature, and underwent in con- 
sequence a special development, which dissociated it 
equally from the interests of religious teaching and of 
bourgeois amusement, and rendered it ultimately the 
principal source of the Elizabethan drama. 



THE EARLY MORALITY 67 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 
GENERAL DISCUSSION 

Cushman, L. W. : The Devil and the Vice in English Dramatic 

Literature before Shakespeare. Halle, 1900. 
Eckhcirdt, E. : Die Lustige Person im alteren englischen Drama 

{his 1642). Palaestra, xvii. Berlin, 1902. 
Thompson, E. N. S.: The English Moral Plays ; "Transactions 

of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences," 1910. 
Traver, H. : The Four Daughters of God. " Bryn Mawr College 

Monographs," 1907. 

TEXTS AND COMMENTARY 

The Pride of Life. MS. Dublin. Printed, J. Mills, Proceed- 
ings Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 1891; A. Brandl, 
Quellen, 1898 ; F. Holthausen, Herrig's Archiv, 108 (1902), 
32-59 (improved text) ; O. Waterhouse, Non-Cycle Mystery 
Plays, etc., E. E. T. S., 1909. 
Macro Plays. Preserved in " Macro " MS. Printed, F. J. 
Furnivall and A. W. Pollard, E. E. T. S., 1904. 
The Castle of Perseverance. Facsimile, J. S. Farmer, 1908. 

Reprinted in part. Pollard, Miracle Plays. 
Mind, Will, and Understanding ( Wisdom). Facsimile, J. S. 
Farmer, 1907. Printed separately. Abbots ford Club, 1837, 
W. B. D. D. Turnbull. Printed from imperfect MS. among 
the Digby Plays, Abbotsford Club, 1835 (50 copies), T. 
Sharp; F. J. Furnivall, Digby Plays, New Shakspere So- 
ciety, 1882 (reissued for E. E. T. S., 1896). — Disau^sion : 
K. Schmidt, " Die Digby-Spiele," Berlin, 1884 ; continued 
in Anglia, viii (1885), 371 ff. 
Mankind. Facsimile, J. S. Farmer, 1907. Printed separately: 
J. M. Manly, Specimens, i, 1897; A. Brandl, Quellen, 1898 ; 
J. S. Farmer, " Lost " Tudor Plays, etc., 1907. 
Everyman. Translated from the Dutch Elckerlijk. Four early 
editions. Reprinted : T. Hawkins, Origin, i, 1773 ; K. Goedeke, 
1865 ; Hazlitt's Dodsley, i, 1874 ; H. Logeman (with Dutch 



68 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

version), 1892 ; T. Sidgwick, 1902 ; A. W. Pollard, 15th Cen- 
tury Prose and Verse, 1903 ; M. U. Moses, 1903 ; VV. W. Greg, 
Materialien, iv, 1904; J. S. Farmer, Anon. Plays (1st Series), 
1905 ; Select English Classics, Oxford, 1909 ; Everyman and 
other Interludes, 1909. — Discussion : K. Goedeke, " Every- 
man, Homulus and Hekastus," Hanover, 1865 ; K. H. de Raaf, 
" Spyeghel der Selicheyt van Elckerlijk," 1897; H. Logeman, 
" Elckerlijk — Everyman, de vraag naar de prioriteit op- 
nieow onderzocht," 1902; J. M. Manly— F. A. Wood, "El- 
ckerlijc-Everyman: The Question of Priority." Mod. Phil., 
viii (1910), 269-302. 



CHAPTER III 

THE TUDOR INTERLUDE 

It is not possible to distinguish clearly between the 
morality and the interlude. Both titles are apphed, it 
would seem interchangeably, and from a very early 
date, to the symbolic class of drama. However, the 
term "interlude" came more and more to be employed 
during the Tudor period, as the plays grew shorter and 
more courtly, and as the gradual disappearance of 
the religious element rendered the expression "moral 
play ' ' increasingly a misnomer. By the commencement 
of Elizabeth's reign, "interlude" and "comedy" are 
practically the only living terms. If a distinction be- 
tween morality and interlude is at all to be drawn on 
the ground of contemporary usage, it will apply, prob- 
ably, rather to the mode of performance than to the 
subject matter. Papers in a law-suit concerning John 
Rastell the printer, about 1530, discriminate between 
"stage-plays" in summer and "interludes" in winter;^ 
where it is evident that the former term designates 
plays acted in the old morality fashion on fixed out-of- 
door stages, before a large public, while interludes were 
performed indoors, generally in private houses and 
before a limited circle. As might be expected, the pro- 
fits are mentioned as being considerably greater in the 
former case. We learn that the same stage costumes 
were employed in both instances, and it is very likely 
that a popular morality — if not too long or didactic — 
* Cf. A. W. Pollard, Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, 316. 



70 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

might be acted in summer in the ancient manner, and 
in winter might be made to do double service as inter- 
lude at state banquets and upon similar occasions. 

This difference is much the same as that which a 
little later existed between performances in the public 
theatres and quasi-private performances in the inns of 
court or the great palaces. The play and the actors 
might be the same, — many of Shakespeare's plays, for 
instance, were acted both publicly and privately, — but 
the ideal requirements differed, and tended to diverge 
further as time went on. It is interesting that, whereas 
the great drama of Shakespeare's time developed itself 
mainly as an answer to the demands of popular perform- 
ance, the Tudor interlude is directly the product of the 
private, indoor representations. 

The essential requisites of the interlude were brevity 
and wit. The precise original sense of the word is dis- 
puted, but there is no doubt that it was understood in 
Tudor times to mean a short play exhibited by profes- 
sionals at the meals of the great and on other occasions 
where later masques would have been fashionable.^ 
Normally the interlude inherited and continued the 
abstractions of the morality, but there was a tendency 
toward the introduction of concrete dramatis persona;, 
which in some of the later instances supplant alto- 
gether the older allegorical figures. No better account 
of the circumstances and manner of presentation of a 
typical interlude can be found than that contained in 
the fourth act of the play of "Sir Thomas More." 

^ On the derivation of the word, see Chambers, Medicrval Stage, ii, 
181-183. The term seems first to be used in a dramatic sense in con- 
nection with the fragmentary Interludium de Clerico et PueUa printed 
from a British Museum MS. by W. Heuser, Anglia, xxx (1907), 306 ff. 



THE TUDOR INTERLUDE 71 

The mystery play, largelj'^ in the hands of the civic 
middle class, was distinctly bourgeois in spirit, and the 
primitive morality tended strongly to plebeianism. 
The interlude, on the contrary, is throughout its career 
an essentially aristocratic species. As a result, this last 
type of drama responds with the greatest fidelity to all 
the conflicting waves of feeling raised by ebb or flow 
of Tudor Renaissance and Reformation, — manifesta- 
tions which, as we have seen, hardly affected the con- 
servative mystery. The interlude possessed no vis 
inerticB. It yielded to the slightest pressure of public 
opinion, and while keeping in greater or smaller degree 
the plot outlines inherited from the morality, devel- 
oped them in the spirit most popular at the moment 
with its enlightened and progressive public. 

It is obvious that the occasions which called into 
existence this particular modification of the allegorical 
drama — occasions of special revelry or rejoicing — 
desired no retention of the grim tone of the strict 
moral play. Nor would they be satisfied with the crude 
patchwork of didacticism and obscenity offered to 
rustic audiences. Very early in the Tudor period, 
therefore, we find the nature of the morality radically 
altered. The change was gradual, but it made for 
catholicity and variety: it substituted for the single 
interest in abstractions of good and evil a number of 
different secular interests. 

The first stage in the development of the interlude, 
manifesting itself in the reign of Henry VII contem- 
poraneously with the earliest indications of the Revival 
of Letters, consists in the mere shift of attention from 
moral to intellectual abstractions. The play of "Na- 
ture," written by Henry Medwall, chaplain to Cardinal 



72 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Morton, and acted before the latter some time previous 
to his death in 1500, is essentially a morality of the old 
type; but it shows variations which are significant. 
The fact of presentation before an audience alive to the 
value of time and impatient of boredom has obliged 
the somewhat prolix author to divide his piece summa- 
rily in the middle, deferring the later half to another 
occasion. There is no artistic reason for the break, 
which would seem to have been distasteful to the poet, 
since he closes his first instalment of fourteen hundred 
lines with the plaintive remark : — 

" And for thys seson 
Here we make an end. 
Lest we shuld offend 
Thys audyence, as god defend 
It were not to be don. 
Ye shall \Tiderstand neuer the lesse 
That there ys myche more of thys processe 
Wherein we shall do our besyness 
And our true endeuure 
To shew yt \'nto you after our guyse. 
When my lord shall so deuyse 
I shalbe at hys pleasure." ^ 

" Nature " purports to deal with man's passage 
through the world from infancy to old age, with his vari- 

^ That Medwall was by no means unduly solicitous concerning 
the patience of his hearers is shown by an anecdote relating to his 
lost play of The Finding of Truth performed before Henry VIII some 
fifteen years later (at Richmond, Christmas, 1514-1515). On this 
occasion an extant document informs us that "Inglyshe, and the 
others of the Kynges pleyers, after pleyed an Interluyt, whiche was 
wryten by Mayster Midwell. but yt was so long ji; was not lykyd. 
. . . The foolys part was the best, but the kyng departyd bef or the 
end to hys chambre." Cf. Collier, i, 69 (ed. 1879). 



THE TUDOR INTERLUDE 73 

ous lapses into sin and his ultimate repentance; but the 
theme is discussed from a purely ethical, not religious 
standpoint. There is no question here of God or Devil, 
Heaven or Hell, in the Christian sense. Rather, the 
supreme power — under "Th' almighty god that made 
eche creature" — is Nature, who begins with a long 
preamble describing mundane phenomena and exhort- 
ing Man to study " Arystotell, my phylosopher electe." 
As in "Mind, Will, and Understanding," man is said 
to be governed by the hostile forces of Reason and 
Sensuality; but these powers no longer appear abso- 
lutely good or evil, symbols of God and sin respec- 
tively, as in the earlier play.^ To the author of "Na- 
ture," Reason and Sensuality are both necessary, but 
the force of Reason is to be kept in the ascendancy. 
Man sins, not because he alienates himself from God, 
but because he dethrones Reason. " Nature" is an elabo- 
rate piece, doubtless performed by choir-boys. The first 
half contains ten speaking parts, the second eighteen, 
of which, however, those representing the seven vir- 
tues and the less prominent vices are very slight. The 
prevailing dreariness of the play is mitigated by some 
fairly good scenes of low comedy. 

In "Nature," which dates from about the middle of 
the reign of Henry VII, we note the substitution of 
semi-pagan, renaissance ethics for the religion of the 
morality. In a slightly later play of the same type the 
new influences in scholarship are reflected even more 
strongly. " A new interlude and a merry of the Nature 
of the Four Elements, declaring many proper points of 
philosophy natural, and of divers strange lands, and of 
divers strange effects and causes," was written by John 
» Cf. p. 62. 



74 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Rastell and probably published by him.^ A reference 
to "the noble king of late memory, The most wise 
prince, the seventh Herry," puts the date of composi- 
tion later than Henry VII 's death in 1509 ; while an- 
other allusion to new lands found westward "now 
within these twenty years " would, if taken literally, 
date the play before 1512. It is rather more probable, 
however, that the author refers to the discovery of the 
new lands, not by Columbus, but by Americus Ves- 
pucci and by Cabot, both of whose voyages, in 1497 and 
1498 respectively, are elsewhere mentioned. If this be 
so, the end of the twenty -year period would be 1517- 
1518, the years apparently immediately preceding the 
publication of this "new" interlude. ^ 

There is no religion whatever in "The Four Ele- 
ments," but the work contains an amount of intellec- 
tual edification which is stupendous. The characters 
are the following: A Messenger, Natura Naturata, 
Humanity, Studious Desire, Sensual Appetite, a Tav- 
erner. Experience, and Ignorance. " Also," we are told, 
"if ye list, ye may bring in a Disguising." At the be- 
ginning appears in true dissertational manner a state- 
ment of the cosmographical theses to be maintained; 
viz., "Of the situation of the four elements, that is to 
say, the earth, the water, the air, the fire, and of their 
qualities and properties, and of the generation and cor- 
ruption of things made of the commixtion of them. 

" Of certain conclusions proving that the earth must 

^ The ascription of authorship depends upon John Bale. Cf. 
article on Rastell in D. N. B, 

^ The extant edition is dated 1519 by Hazlitt {Dodsley, vol. i) on 
the doubtful authority of a manuscript insertion in the fragmentary 
British Museum copy. 



THE TUDOR INTERLUDE 75 

needs be round, and that it hangeth in the midst of 
the firmament, and that it is in circumference above 
21,000 miles, etc." 

In a long prologue of nearly one hundred and fifty 
lines, the Messenger introduces this 

"little interlude, late made and prepared — 
Which of a few conclusions is contrived. 
And points of philosophy natural," 

deploring the poverty of learned works in the English 
tongue as compared with the Greek and Latin, and 
the tendency of ignorant writers 

"New books to compile and ballads to endite 
Some of love or other matter not worth a mite." 

The plot is negligible. Nature, Studious Desire, and 
Experience all take turns in unfolding to Humanity, 
with the aid of a globe, the secrets of this earth and of 
the visible universe. For a time the pupil plays truant, 
and goes off with Sensual Appetite, Ignorance, and the 
Taverner to feast and revel; but his enjoyment, like 
that of the reader, is half-hearted, and he is easily won 
back to the pursuit of knowledge. Some effort is made 
at spectacular effect in the way of comic song and 
dance, but this is, like the Disguising, which is to be 
brought in "if ye list," only a sop to the spectators, 
who, as the author very justly feared, might not other- 
wise endure his tedious instruction. That the piece was 
felt to trespass on the patience of its hearers is evident 
from the title-page, which admits that if played in 
full, it ' ' will contain the space of an hour and a half ; but 
if ye list, ye may leave out much of the sad matter, as 
the Messenger's part, and some of Nature's part, and 



76 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

some of Experience's part, and yet the matter mil de- 
pend conveniently, and then it will not be past three 
quarters of an hour of length." It is evident that this 
Tudor audience has advanced very far beyond that 
which was content to witness "The Castle of Perse- 
verance," when it declines to put up with too much 
"sad" matter, and prefers not to be detained above 
three quarters of an hour. 

Several other educational interludes exist. John 
Redford's undated play of " Wyt and Science" relates 
the rather lamentable adventures of the foolish young 
Wit, who sets out to woo and marry his natural com- 
plement. Science, daughter of Reason and Experience, 
In his wanderings he is grievously mauled by the giant 
Tediousness, and gulled by Idleness and Ignorance; but 
he is saved at last from error, avenges himself with the 
aid of his servants Instruction, Diligence, and Study, 
upon the giant, and wins the lady Science. The con- 
temporary popularity of this rather dull piece is at- 
tested by the existence of two imitations. "The Mar- 
riage of Wit and Science," licensed for publication in 
1569-1570, shows the taste for allegory on the wane. 
Wit, Will, and several of the other characters are pretty 
concrete personages, and the author has evidently tried 
hard to evolve a romantic plot out of his unadaptable 
material. Tediousness, in particular, is changed from a 
pedagogical symbol into a bogey of nursery tale pro- 
portions, and he here plays somewhat the role of 
dragon to Science's Andromeda and Wit's Perseus. 
The careful division of this piece into acts, and the 
employment of the tj'pically Elizabethan alexandrines 
and " f ourteeners " in place of the older irregular verse, 
bear out the indications of spirit and tone in showing 



THE TUDOR INTERLUDE 77 

the play to have been written very shortly before it was 
published. 

Another interlude apparently indebted to Redford, 
and one of the most interesting of its class, is "The 
Marriage of Wit and Wisdom," written by one Francis 
Merbury,^ and prepared for publication in 1579,^ 
though probably composed somewhat earlier. This 
play also shows allegory largely neglected in the new 
interest in plot and character. There are a great num- 
ber of figures, but the author is careful to suggest how 
all the parts can be filled by six actors. With equal con- 
sideration he has sought to explain the weaknesses and 
inconsistencies in Wit's character by making him son 
to the ill-matched couple. Severity and Indulgence. 
Wit suffers in this work truly double measure for all 
his follies, since in addition to the giant, who is here 
called Irksomeness, he falls into the hands of a new and 
most accomplished mischief-maker in the person of 
"Idleness the vice." There is really little but the bare 
shell left of the old academic allegory. Six of the fig- 
ures — Catch and Snatch, Mother Bee, Lob, Doll, and 
Search — have no connection with the symbolical part 
of the story; and Idleness himseK so far belies his name 
that he is almost the only person in the drama who dis- 
plays a proper energy. The poet has managed to get 
into the piece enough of irrelevant farce and melo- 
dramatic interest to make it tolerable reading: it is 

* The identification of the author rests upon the concluding words 
of the manuscript, "Amen quoth fra Merbury." 

^ The manuscript is not known to have been actually printed 
before 1846; but that publication was intended is clear from the 
general form of the MS. title-page and from the phrase "neuer 
before imprinted." 



78 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

much the most engaging of the three related plays, 
and at the same time the least faithful example of the 
interlude. 

The changed spirit which came into fashionable 
drama with the Renaissance is well illustrated in "The 
World and the Child," printed by Wynkyn de Worde 
in 1522. This play takes over the plot of the old morali- 
ties with no such conscious adaptation as is seen in 
those we have just been discussing, but develops it in 
what was for the drama an entirely new spirit. The 
ostensible scope of "The World and the Child" is 
almost as great as that of " The Castle of Perseverance," 
from which, directly or indirectly, it may have derived 
the story. It treats Man's life from childhood to old 
age, his progress through the successive steps of sin, his 
repentance, relapse, and final conversion by Conscience 
and Perseverance. But the old theme is elaborated 
with considerable novelty. The first striking feature 
is the tendency to condensation; only five characters 
appear, and man's whole career is disposed of in nine 
hundred and seventy-nine lines. The attitude toward 
life is entirely altered from that of the medisevalist 
authors of "The Castle of Perseverance" and "Every- 
man." This world is no longer a vale of sorrows. It is 
a place of manifold experiences, unedifying for the most 
part, no doubt, but full of the most unquestionable 
zest. Except for the last pages, where the poet reverts 
to the conventional conclusion, the representation is no 
longer didactic : it is truly dramatic. We find the teem- 
ing life of the city where before we met abstractions of 
virtue or vice. Realism has here progressed far beyond 
that universal peasant scurrility which plays so great a 
part in " Mankind." It has become definitely pictorial. 



THE TUDOR INTERLUDE 79 

Drollery has taken to itself a local habitation, and the 
spectator is presented for perhaps the first time in Eng- 
lish drama with a somewhat comprehensive view of the 
actual life of London streets. There is nothing new, of 
course, in this genre. All that we find in "The World 
and the Child" can be found more abundantly in 
" Piers the Plowman" and in Chaucer. There has even 
been pointed out recently a most interesting specific 
indebtedness of the play to an early fifteenth-century 
poem called "The Mirror of the Periods of Man's 
Life." ^ But the transference of this spirit from narra- 
tive to dramatic poetry is an important step. It shows 
the interlude awaking to a sense of the inherent inter- 
est of actual life, and heralds from afar a long line of 
realistic comedies such as "Bartholomew Fair," "The 
Puritan," and "The London Prodigal." 

There is no doubt that "The World and the Child" 
was written con amore. In some way the hackneyed 
theme is freshened for the reader, and the life of Man is 
given a novelty in each of its six stages of Dalliance, 
Wanton, Lust-and-Liking, Manhood, Shame, and Age. 
As examples of the new tone one might instance young 
Wanton's description of his own character: — 

" If brother or syster do me chyde, 
I wyll scratche and also byte; 
I can crye and also kyke 
And mocke them all be rewe. 
If fader or moder wyll me smyte, 
I wyll wrjTige with my lyppe 
And lyghtly from hym make a skyppe 
And call my dame shrewe"; 

* See H. N. MacCracken, "A Source of Mundus et Infans," Puhl. 
Mod. Lang. Assoc, xxiii (1908), 486 flf. 



80 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

and the wonderfully infectious stanza in which Man- 
hood turns his back upon the straight and narrow 
path : — 

"Now I wyll folowe Folye, 

For Folye is my man. 

Ye, Folye is my felowe 

And hath gyuen me a name: 

Conscyence called me Manhode, 

Folye calleth me Shame." 

"Hickscorner," printed like "The World and the 
Child" by Wynkyn de Worde, but without date, be- 
longs to the same general type of reduced and secular- 
ized morality. It has been regarded as a controversial 
play in defence of the Roman Church, a theory which 
receives support from the definite references to the 
contemporary irreligious state of England and from the 
names given to the vices. ^ Its realism is of the localized 
London sort found in "The World and the Child," 
and it represents a still farther advance in structure. 
There are here six characters : three Naces (Hick-scorner, 
Imagination, and Freewill) pitted against three virtues 
(Pity, Contemplation, and Perseverance). The awk- 
ward lay-figure. Mankind, has been boldly thrown 
overboard, and the play moves the more lightly \Nathout 
him. We have thus the elements of a true dramatic 
conflict where the actors contend whole-heartedly by 
reason of some cause of opposition within themselves, 
and the suggestion of dogs snarling over a bone in the 
shape of poor mortality's soul is no longer forced 
upon us. 

* Professor Creizenach finds a noteworthy similarity, which I do 
not fully perceive, between Hickscorner and The Interlude of Youth. 
Cf. Geschichte des neueren Dramas, iii, 503, 504. 



THE TUDOR INTERLUDE 81 

All the writers of interludes based on the morality 
plot of the battle of vices and virtues were confronted 
with this problem: what to do with the central figure. 
Mankind, a character much too vague and comprehen- 
sive as he stood either to be individualized in accord- 
ance with the new requirements of dramatic action, or 
to be reduced into proportion with the smaller scope 
and more trivial interests of the fashionable interlude. 
The author of "The World and the Child" begs the 
question by virtually splitting Mankind into six parts 
and treating each separately. The author of "Hick- 
scorner " throws him out altogether and sacrifices with 
him the cohesion of the play, though the gain in vivid- 
ness compensates on the whole for the injury to the 
plot. The more popular and successful course, how- 
ever, was to select for treatment one particular division 
of Mankind's history, and to devote the attention 
solely to that. The division selected was naturally that 
of youth, which offered freest play alike to the educa- 
tional and to the melodramatic propensities of the time. 
Mankind, reduced to Youth, becomes a sufficiently 
tangible conception, with definite faults and follies, and 
yields abundant opportunity for individualization. 

Two well-known plays in this manner are "The 
Interlude of Youth" and "Lusty Juventus," both of 
which deal with the seduction of their hero by the 
temptations proper to his age and with his ultimate 
conversion. It is unfortunate that both these pieces, 
written relatively late, during the heat of the final 
Reformation struggle, and championing the causes of 
Roman Catholicism and Protestantism respectively, 
have too much interest in the polemics of the hour to 
develop fully the dramatic possibilities of their subject. 



82 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

This is especially the case with the anti-popish "Ju- 
ventus," which devotes pages to exposing the fallacy of 
the doctrine of salvation by works, and to reprehend- 
ing the idolatrous practices of the mediaeval church. 
For all that, "Lusty Juventus" contains two of the 
finest songs to be found in the pre-Elizabethan drama, 
and its main comic scene was paid the compliment of 
plagiarism by the author of the mock interlude in "Sir 
Thomas More." 

The argumentative tone of these last two plays is 
shared by a considerable group of interludes belonging 
to the period of the Reformation, which concern them- 
selves rather with opinions than with morals, facts, or 
manners. The dramatic framework is here filled out, 
not with discussions of pedagogical import, or with 
hiunorous matter derived from the follies of common 
life, but with satire directed against particular theories 
in religion or politics. It was natural that this species 
of interlude should keep itself somewhat closer than 
the others to the form of moral allegory from which 
they all descended. Symbolic abstractions could here 
be put to use in a way hardly possible elsewhere. 

The first important political allegory in the form of 
interlude is the "Magnificence" of John Skelton. Just 
as we have seen the stock abstractions of the old drama 
shifted in plays like "The Four Elements" and "Wit 
and Science" from the domain of religion to that of 
knowledge, so here we find them introduced into the 
arena of state-craft. The central figure is no longer 
frail and sinful mankind; he is Magnificence, a worldly 
prince, surrounded by good and evil counsellors, drawn 
into extravagance and misgovernment by the advice 
of self-seekers, and rescued finally from the ensuing 



THE TUDOR INTERLUDE 83 

embarrassments by his true advisers. The date of this 
play is about 1516, the period of Wolsey's greatest 
power, and there can be little doubt that its intention 
was to point out the danger of the latter's ambitious 
and wasteful policy at home and abroad, while cov- 
ertly championing the side of Skelton's patron, the 
Duke of Norfolk, and the older nobility. The charac- 
ters are all political types with such names as Felicity, 
Liberty, Measure, Counterfeit Countenance, Crafty 
Conveyance, Cloaked Collusion, and Courtly Abusion. 
The work extends to more than twenty-five hundred 
lines, and, like the not dissimilar Scottish "Three Es- 
tates" of twenty years later, is too intricately con- 
structed to be easily summarized.^ 

The religious controversy of the later years of 
Henry VIII and the animosities incident to the reigns 
of Edward VI and Mary were prolific of dramas which, 
under cover of abstract figures, supported one or an- 
other of the factions in Church and State. Such was, 
doubtless, the lost play of Lord Governance and Lady 
Public-Weal, acted at Gray's Inn, Christmas, 1526- 
1527, and described in considerable detail by the chron- 
icler. Hall. 2 Wolsey, imagining that a satire against 
himself was intended, imprisoned the author, John 
Roo, and one of the actors in the Fleet, whence they 
were released upon the explanation — perhaps not alto- 
gether true — that the play had been "compy led for 
the moste part ... 20 yere pa.st, and long before the 
Cardinall had any authoritie. " A little later in the 
same year (November 10, 1527) a Latin play pre- 

^ See the admirable introduction to the play, by R. L. Ramsay, 
in the Early English Text Society edition. 
2 Hall's Chronicle, ed. 1809, 719. 



84 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

sented before the King and the French ambassa- 
dors introduced satirical portraits of the "errytyke 
Lewter" and of Luther's wife among more conven- 
tional figures like Religion, Ecclesia, Veritas, Heresy, 
False Interpretation, and Corupcyo-scryptorris (sic). 
A strong Protestant animus evidently inspired the lost 
plays of Thomas Wylley, Vicar of Yoxford, Suffolk, 
who in a letter addressed to Cromwell about 1535 ap- 
peals for support against the hostility of the conserva- 
tive priests of his county, and mentions four polemical 
dramas of his composition: "A Reverent Receyvyng 
of the Sacrament . . , declaryd by vi chyldren, repre- 
sentyng Chryst, the worde of God, Paule, Austyn, a 
Chylde, a Nonne called Ignorancy"; "a play agaynst 
the popys Counselers, Error, Colle Clogger of Con- 
scyens, and Increduly te " ; "A Rude Commynawlte"; 
and "The Woman on the Rokke, yn the fyer of fay the 
a fynyng, and a purgyng in the trewe purgatory." 

The same spirit appears in several extant works of 
unambitious scope. "The Booke in Meeter of Robin 
Conscience: against his Father Couetousnesse, his 
Mother Newgise, and his Sister Proud Beautye" is not 
a play. It is composed in rime royal stanzas of very 
artificial structure, and consists of three separate de- 
bates between Robin Conscience, apparently an apos- 
tle of the new religion, and each of his worldly rela- 
tives. A stronger controversial tone pervades two 
contemporary dialogues, embedded in prose polemical 
matter and clearly not intended for presentation. The 
"brefe Dialoge betwene two prestes servauntis named 
Watkyn and JefiFraye" makes up the principal portion 
of the bitterly anti-Wolseyan "Rede Me and Be Not 
Wrothe," printed at Strassburg in 1528; and "A 



THE TUDOR INTERLUDE 85 

proper dyaloge betwene a Gentillman and a husband- 
man eche complaynynge to other their miserable 
calami te through the ambicion of the clergye," pub- 
lished in 1530 "at Marborow in the lande of Hessen," 
also, of course, by an English religious exile, was curi- 
ously supplemented by " an olde [Lollard] treatyse made 
aboute the tyme of kynge Rycharde the seconde." 

A much more genuine dramatic value attaches to the 
interlude of "John Bon and Mast Parson," a piece 
containing only about one hundred and seventy lines 
and introducing merely the two interlocutors named in 
the title. The topic of this dialogue is the theory of 
transubstantiation and the resultant feast of Corpus 
Christi, — matters which, as has been seen, had power- 
fully influenced the earliest forms of English drama. 
The author of " John Bon " has combined, not unsuc- 
cessfully, the dialogue form and rough wit of Hey- 
wood with Bale's sharpness of religious argumentation, 
and his work, short and unpretending though it is, is 
one of the most pleasing of the theological interludes 
of the period. 

A somewhat later and vastly more important exam- 
ple of controversial drama is the "merye enterlude en- 
titled Respublica, made in the yeare of our Lorde 
1553, and the first yeare of the moost prosperous 
Reigne of our moste gracious Soueraigne Queue Marye 
the first." The original list of the dramatis personoB 
is interesting: — 

The Partes and Names of the Plaiers. 
The Prologue, a Poete. 
Avarice allias Policie, the vice of the plaie. 
Insolence, " Auihoritie, the chief gallaunt. 



fowre Ladies. 



86 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Oppression allias Reformatiim, an other gallaunt. 
Adnlation *' Honcstic, the third gallaunt. 
People, representing the poore Commontie. 
Respublioa. a wydowe. 
Misericordia 
Veritas 
lusticia 
Pax 

Nemesis, the goddes of redresse and correction, a 
goddesse. 

"Respublica" is a play political rather than secta- 
rian. There is interesting, though not convincing rea- 
son for the theory that it was written by Nicholas 
Udall, the author of " Ralph Roister Doister." ^ The plot 
concerns the sufferings of the widow Respublica, the 
Commonwealth of England, and her servant People at 
the hands of the rapacious counsellors who during the 
last two reigns had despoiled the Church and wasted 
the revenues of the Crown. At last, of course. Nemesis 
steps in, in the person of Queen Mary, whereupon the 
false stewards are revealed in their true characters and 
are forced to make restitution of their ill-gotten gains. 

The opposite side in the controversy was ardently 
espoused by John Bale, who spent two periods of 
Catholic ascendancy (1540-1547, 1553-1558) in exile 
by reason of his ^^olently expressed religious views; 
and, for doubtless the same cause, was preferred during 
the Protestant reign of Edward VI to the bishopric of 
Ossory in Ireland. In three strange "interludes," gen- 
erally referred to in abbre^'iated title as "God's Pro- 
mises," "John Baptist," and "The Temptation of our 

^ See L. A. Maginis. Introduction to E. E. T. S. cxl., xii-xxii. 



THE TUDOR INTERLUDE 87 

Lord," all said to have been written in 1538, Bale has 
cui-iously blended the mystery and the morality form 
into a vehicle for the exposition of his anti-papal doc- 
trine. A fourth play with the same polemical bent 
shows considerably higher artistic development. "A 
Comedy concernynge thre lawes, of Nature, Moses, 
and Christ, corrupted by the Sodomytes, Pharysees, 
and Papystes " claims to have been composed like the 
rest in 1538, but references to King Edward, Queen 
Katherine, and "the noble lorde protectour" in the 
concluding stanzas show these at least to have been 
written after 1547, while the concluding words of the 
colophon, "lately imprented per Nicolaum Bambur- 
gensem" may indicate that the piece was published on 
the Continent during Bale's second exile. "The Three 
Laws" is perhaps the most vigorous, as it is certainly 
one of the most carefully composed of all the Tudor 
controversial interludes. Bale, who claims the distinc- 
tion of having first domesticated in English drama the 
terms "comedy" and "tragedy," is also one of the 
earliest writers to introduce the Latin di\asion of plays 
into acts; and "The Three Laws" shows perfect com- 
prehension of the capabilities of the five-act structure. 
Act I permits Deus Pater to introduce the three laws 
and assign to each a period of guardianship over man- 
kind. The next three acts present successively the sub- 
version of each of these laws by the embodiment of 
evil. Infidelity, and his satellites; while the fifth brings 
the denouement in the appearance of God's Vengeance, 
the banishment of Infidelity, and the rehabilitation of 
the Laws. The reference to Sodomites and Pharisees 
in the title is delusive. Bale's concern is exclusively 
with the Papists, whom he makes responsible, not only 



88 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

for the burning of Christ's Law, but for the leprosy of 
the Law of Nature and the bhnding and hiniing of that 
of Moses as well. The six corrupting agents, "%^'ces or 
frutes of Infydelyte," are all exponents of Romish 
wickedness, and Bale is careful that their garb shall 
betray their character to the spectators. Idolatry is to 
be "decked like an old witch [/. e., a vender of relics], 
Sodomy like a monk of all sects, Ambition like a 
bishop, Covetousness like a spiritual lawyer. False 
Doctrine like a popish Doctor, and Hypocrisy like a 
Qrey Friar." Bale's most famous play, "King Johan," 
breathes the same spirit, but is so peculiar in form as 
to demand discussion in the next chapter. Meanwhile 
the general dramatic method and the religious tenets of 
the earlier plays were taken over without noticeable 
change by the unknown Protestant author of "New 
Custom," who would seem consciously to have adopted 
Bale as his model. 

Beside the work of Bale, it is proper to consider the 
production of another coarse, yet sturdy and strikingly 
indi\'idual expositor of papal corruption. Sir David 
Lindsay's "Satire of the Three Estates" — as nearly 
as possible contemporaneous in its different forms with 
the period of Bale's dramatic acti^'ity — is a poem 
which stands quite apart from the line of English stage 
progress by reason of its uncouth irregularity of form, 
and still more by its restriction to the Scots dialect and 
the social and political milieu of Edinburgh. Yet its 
imposing bulk and weight of thought, its boldness in 
meeting empirically the unsolved problems of his- 
trionic presentation, and the neatness with which it 
offers commentary and contrast to such works as 
"Magnificence," "Respublica," "The Three Laws," 



THE TUDOR INTERLUDE 89 

and " King Johan," make it an important document 
in the history of even the southern British drama. 

"The Three Estates" appears to have been first 
acted before King James V of Scotland at LinUthgow, 
January 6, 1540. For a Uiter performance at Cupar 
in Fife, June 7, 1552, a number of additions and local 
references were introduced, and it is substantially in 
the form there presented that the work survives. A 
repetition of the play two years later (1554), on the 
plaj'^field at Greenside near Edinburgh, seems to have 
involved no important change in the text prepared for 
Cupar of Fife. The only complete version of the poem 
was printed at Edinburgh by Robert Charteris in 1602; 
but an important manuscript, dating from 1568, in- 
cludes a selection from the more comic portions, and 
derives special importance from the fact that, although 
it purports to be based on the text used at Greenside, it 
preserves the only extant version of the preliminary 
interlude which advertised the Cupar of Fife perform- 
ance. This "Proclamation Maid at Cowpar of Fyffe" 
is the precise equivalent of the introductory "banns" 
which had been employed a full century before to 
announce the prospective exhibition of "The Castle 
of Perseverance" and of the mystery cycle known 
a:: "Ludus Coventrise."^ The people of the neighbor- 
hood are warned of the intended arrival of the Prince 
and the Three Estates in "Cowpar Town," and are 
further informed : — 

" Our purpose is on the Sevint day of June, 
Gif weddir serve, and we haif rest and pece. 
We sail be sene intill our Playing place. 
In gude array, abowt the hour of sevin." 

» See pp. 19 and 55-57. 



90 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Let the public, therefore, get up ''right airly" and 
"disjune" (i. e., breakfast), and 

"Faill nocht to be upone the Castell-hill 
Besyd the place quhair we purpoiss to play," 

and let them be prepared both for "sad" matter and 
for bantering. 

It is necessary to turn back to "The Castle of Perse- 
verance" to find in English drama any parallel to the 
tremendous scope of this play with its two hundred 
solid pages of verse, its equal appeal to the whole range 
of contemporary society from king to peasant, and 
that grand mediaeval leisureliness and simplicity which 
give it courage to attack the entire visible fabric of life 
from the highest problems of morality and govern- 
ment to the lowest reaches of profane wit. It is no 
question here of the small indoor stage and a select 
number of courtly auditors. The theatre is the "play- 
field" out of doors, the spectators make up the entire 
population, and the actors number at least forty. The 
scene is imagined so broad that messengers make jour- 
neys and return from one side of it to the other, and a 
dozen localities can be represented on it concurrently. 
The king sits high upon his throne and sees only afar 
off the petitioners who would have audience with him; 
a small boy finds false relics in a field upon a hill and 
shouts to his master in the crowd below; and the stocks 
stand in view through the entire performance, receiv- 
ing now the good and now the evil characters. About 
this primitive stage, as around that on which "The 
Castle of Perseverance" was acted, stands a ditch 
filleji with real water, in which the Sowter's Wife can 
wade waist-deep, and into which the cheated Poor Man 
tosses the Pardoner's relics. 



THE TUDOR INTERLUDE 91 

It is interesting to contrast the structure of this 
Scottish work with that of the only EngHsh moral plays 
of the century which at all approach it in length 
and satiric purpose — Skelton's "Magnificence" and 
Bale's "Three Laws." While Skelton, by sticking dog- 
gedly to the thin and inadequate frame of the interlude, 
has made his poem, however dull and over-weighted, a 
regular and, technically, even a rather admirable exam- 
ple of morality architecture; and while Bale intro- 
duces from classic act and scene division the support 
which he needed for his ambitious satire, Lindsay 
ignores equally the old and the new dramatic models, 
and wins attention by sheer force of intellect and un- 
reasoned brilliance of execution. Independent farcical 
dialogues, or "interludes," as long and as non-moral as 
those of Heywood, are inserted at will in the intervals 
between the sections of a flagellation of ecclesiastical 
hypocrisy and greed more violent even than Bale's; 
and the long work wanders on with only a thin thread 
of story and with no observable law of growth. Yet 
"The Satire of the Three Estates" is a more read- 
able play than either "Magnificence" or "The Three 
Laws." The very frankness of its irregularity disarms 
criticism and piques the attention; and the photo- 
graphic sincerity of all its pictures, whether of clownish 
turbulence or aristocratic vice, largely justifies the 
inclusion of each and goes far to keep the varied ele- 
ments from clashing. 

Lindsay had good reason to entitle his work as he 
did. It is as satire rather than as drama that it gains 
its effects; and it traces its literary ancestry, not 
through the sequence of the moral plays, but by way of 
the satiric dialogues of Dunbar, back to the art form 



92 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

of Langland. In many details of treatment, indeed, 
reminiscence of "Piers the Plowman" seems clearly 
evident, as in the conception of the vices, Flattery, 
Falsehood, and Deceit, and the portrayal of their rela- 
tions with the temporal and spiritual classes, and in 
the development of the figure of John the Common- 
weal. It was natural that so long a work, so little 
guided by rules of structure, should flag in interest 
toward the end. The play falls into two parts, with an 
intermission during which the people were to make 
collation. When acted at Greenside the entire per- 
formance extended from nine in the morning till six 
o'clock at night, and the Cupar proclamation, which 
announces the beginning for seven o'clock, suggests 
pointedly that the spectators "ordane us gude drink 
agains ellevin," when the first part should be finished. 
Overburdened though it is with characters and inade- 
quate in motivation, a very fair interest attaches 
nevertheless to this first part, which depicts the fall of 
Rex Humanitas, beguiled by evil followers, under the 
influence of Dame Sensuality; the advancement of dis- 
guised Flattery, Falsehood, and Deceit; the banish- 
ment of Good Counsel; and the imprisonment of 
Verity and Chastity, together with the final overthrow 
of the evil powers upon the arrival of Divine Correc- 
tion. The second part, however, which contains the 
author's boldest strokes and accounts for the name of 
the poem, is in all its serious portions rather narrative 
than dramatic, and except here and there makes flat 
reading. The tedious account of the proceedings of the 
Parliament, with the long story of the wrongs of John 
the Commonweal and Pauper, the exposition of the 
subtle shifts of the members of Spirituality, and the 



THE TUDOR INTERLUDE 93 

final rehearsal of the fifteen Parliamentary acts form 
dull matter in a play; and the student who arrives 
ultimately at the execution of the three malefactors 
and the escape of Flattery finds himself seriously be- 
fuddled concerning all the dramatic issues. 

The most famous of all interlude writers is John Hey- 
wood (? 1497- ? 1580), who departed boldly from every 
tradition of subject and treatment, and produced a 
style of drama frankly satiric and amusing rather than 
didactic. Heywood's plays are literary in a sense in 
which few other interludes can be called so. While ab- 
solutely independent and original in his relation to na- 
tive dramatic models, Heywood is almost reactionary 
in his adherence to mediaeval themes, and has been 
shown to owe a very considerable debt to the French 
farce of his day.^ After discarding as uninteresting or 
plebeian the usual subjects of the English drama, he is 
forced to supply their place either from abroad or from 
what were in his day the only standard conventions 
in secular English literature, — those of Chaucer's 
age. 

The simplest of Heywood's plays is a mere debat in 
riming couplets, preserved in a signed manuscript of 
the poet, and intended, as the Epilogue indicates, for 
presentation before the King himself. The academic 
question of the relative happiness of the "Witty" and 
"Witless" states is argued, first by James and John, 
then by John and Jerome. Only at the end of eight 
hundred lines of clever casuistry does the poet succeed 
In proving the lot of King Solomon preferable to that 
of the court fool. Will Somer. 

^ See K. Young, "The Influence of French Farce upon the Plays 
of John Heywood," Modern Philology, ii (1904). 



94 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Identical in metre ^ with "Witty and Witless" is 
another dialogue of greater dramatic merit, to which 
Hey wood has so far only a conjectural claim. " Gentle- 
ness and Nobility," " Adyaloge betwentheMarchaunt, 
the Knyght, and the plowman, dysputyng who is a 
verey Gentylman," seems to me in a number of details 
to bear the marks of Heywood's peculiar method, and 
it undoubtedly shows an advance upon that author's 
"Witty and Witless." Whereas the three disputants 
of the latter piece are entirely unindividualized, the 
three speakers in "Gentleness and Nobility" are care- 
fully endowed with the contrasted class characteristics 
upon which Hey wood relies for his main effect in nearly 
all his more developed dramas, and which he employs 
with especial cleverness in the "Play of the Weather." 
"Witty and Witless" is a rather dull composition, dis- 
playing no knowledge of the rules of stage action and 
indicating a positive incapacity to deal with more than 
two of the dramatis personoB at a time. Thus, one of 
the three figures is always completely neglected, while 
Heywood is presenting the dispute of the other two. 
The author of "Gentleness and Nobility," on the con- 
trary, has a mastery of dramatic technique, which 
everywhere suggests Heywood's more ambitious 
plays. The speakers are brought on and ofif the stage 
with perfect naturalness; the interplay of speech and 
action is that of the adept in arranging stage situation ; 
and the break in the middle of the piece, necessitated 
by the short patience of the audience, is so managed 
as to avoid every indication of artificiality or inco- 
herence. One has but to compare the deliberate skill 

^ Each is written in rough riming couplets, with an epilogue in 
rime royal. 



THE TUDOR INTERLUDE 95 

manifested in the division of "Gentleness and No- 
bility" with the sheer awkward amputation of Med- 
wall's "Nature" in order to realize the presence of that 
new artistry in plot manipulation which is generally 
regarded as Heywood's great contribution to Eng- 
lish dramatic progress. 

Heywood's authorship of " Gentleness and Nobility " 
is rendered the more probable by a relationship which 
seems not hitherto to have been noted. Like "The 
Pardoner and the Friar" and "The Four P's," and 
unlike any other known drama of this epoch, "Gentle- 
ness and Nobility" is marked by a very close imitation 
of the work of Chaucer. The entire moral of the piece 
is taken from the Wife of Bath's Tale, and the specific 
verbal plagiarism in several passages is hardly less 
striking than that manifested in the two accepted 
works just mentioned.^ 

In the "Play of Love," Hey wood harks back to the 
old subtleties and refinements of the courts of love. 
The four characters are thus named: The Lover not Be- 
loved, The Woman Beloved not Loving, The Lover 
Beloved, Neither Lover nor Loved. The last figure, 
who is elsewhere termed the "vyse," gives the play all 
the little liveliness it possesses. The contents can well 
be imagined. They may in Heywood's time have 
amused an audience of fine ladies and court gallants, as 
they would certainly have been more likely to do two 
centuries earlier, but there is little reason why a stu- 
dent of the drama should linger over so patent an 
anachronism. 

The most carefully worked out of Heywood's plays, 
and the most original, is the "new and very merry in- 

^ See, further, my article in Modern Language Review, 1911. 



96 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

terlude of all manner weathers," devised, probably, in 
flattery of Henry VIII. ^ Instead of the three or four 
characters in his other works, Heywood here intro- 
duces ten, all of whom are on the stage simultane- 
ously in the concluding scene. The dramatis personce 
embrace Jupiter, the all-wise and affable sovereign; 
Merry Report, the vice, whose genially comic figure 
has lost all savor of the fire and brimstone originally 
attaching to it; and a collection from the difiPerent 
types of humanity; a gentleman, a merchant, a forest- 
ranger, a water-miller, a wind-miller, a gentlewoman, a 
laundress, and a boy "the least that can play." This 
motley assemblage is brought together by a proclama- 
tion of Jupiter, desirous once for all to settle mundane 
meteorology, that all persons interested in the weather 
should declare their preferences. The clash of conflict- 
ing interests is amusingly depicted. The gentleman 
thinks of his hunting, the merchant of his sailing ves- 
sels, the forester of his windfall perquisites, the water- 
miller and the wind-miller have high words over the 
need of rain and wind respectively. The gentlewoman, 
anxious for her complexion, finds herself at odds with 
the laundress, who clamors for hot sunshine; and the 
small boy comes in as emissary from his fellows to de- 
mand unlimited snow-balling. Jupiter reconciles the 
contending suitors and makes clear to the audience 
the supreme wisdom of his own arrangements. 

In the plays of "Love" and "Weather" it is possible 
to discern the vague influence of the morality in the 
"vice," who still remains, though greatly altered and 
humanized. In the other interludes of Heywood even 

' Concerning the source, see J. Q. Adams, Mod. Lang. Notes, 
1907, 262. 



THE TUDOR INTERLUDE 97 

this resemblance disappears, and the reader finds him- 
self conveyed back by subject-matter and spirit of 
treatment to Chaucer and fourteenth-century realism; 
while in dramatic method he is being carried forward 
— thanks to the poet's individual genius and to his 
imitation of the French — to a plane of technical skill 
and conscious art considerably higher than that at- 
tained by any of Heywood's contemporaries. In "The 
Pardoner and the Friar," the "Mery Play between 
JohanJohan the husbande,Tyb hiswyfe, and syr Jhan 
the preest," and the famous "Four P's," there is no- 
thing which suggests either the ancient morality play 
or the religious and social conditions of Heywood's 
time. Doubtless Heywood, in whom the controversial- 
ist seems to have been submerged in the entertainer, 
and whose sympathies lay certainly with the less 
aggressive papal party in the Reformation conflict, 
found it safer and pleasanter to avoid the burning 
questions of theological dispute, so fully treated by 
Bale, and to restrict himself to trite and harmless 
themes such as the impostures of pardoners, friars, and 
palmers, or the amorous lapses of the parish clergy. 
Page after page in these dramas is plagiarized from the 
" Canterbury Tales." There is nowhere a turn of thought 
or plot unfamiliar to readers of Boccaccio and Chaucer; 
but Heywood makes up for the uninventive archaism 
of his subject by progressiveness in presentation. In 
his interludes English realistic comedy attains full 
growth . ^ The mustard seed of buffoonery, found almost 

^ The most interesting survival of the particular type of interlude 
evolved by Heywood in John John is probably the play of Tom Tyler 
and his Wife, which exists only in a "second impression," dated 
1661. As the £nal prayer for the "noble Queen" shows, the work 



98 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

by accident in the mystery and the early morality, has 
completely choked the more serious matter. Comedy 
required at this period, not stimulation, but refine- 
ment, — deepening and idealization. These elements 
were added in time, but they were not to be found in 
native drama, and their gradual introduction mani- 
fests itself in a number of hybrid productions, which 
begin as mere expressions of the playwright's craving 
for greater variety of subject, and end by bridging the 
chasm between the incoherent native interlude and the 
largely exotic and thoroughly self-conscious, but still 
essentially national comedy of Elizabeth's reign. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I. Interlttdes reflecting the Educational Interests op 
THE Renaissance 
Medwall, H. : Nature. Undated edition (copy in British Mu- 
seum). Facsimile, J. S. Farmer, 1908. Reprinted, A. Brandl, 
Quellen u. Forschungen, 80, 1898 ; J. S. Farmer, " Lost " Tudor 
Plays, 1907. Fragment of early edition facsimiled Materialien, 
Bd. xii. A third fragment in Bodleian (Rawlinson, 40, 598, 12). 
A lost Interlude by " Mayster Midwell," " of the fyndyng 
of Troth " acted at Richmond, Christmas, 1514-15. Cf. Col- 
lier, i, 69. [" A godely interlude of Fulgeus, Cenatoure of 
Rome, Lucres his doughter, Gayus Flaminius and Publius 
Cornelius, of the Disputacyon of Noblenes," said by Halli- 
well-Phillipps {Outlines, 10 ed. ii, 340) to have been written 

must date from before the death of Elizabeth, and it is probable that 
it belongs to an even earlier period. Tom Tyler combines a reminis- 
cence of the morality convention in "Desire, the Vice" and the "sage 
Parsons," Destiny and Patience, with a very Heywoodian farcical 
plot of village types. Evidently, however, the genuine dramatic 
interest in this piece was subordinate to the operatic appeal of the 
seven long songs which the author manages to introduce within the 
small compass of nine hundred lines. 



THE TUDOR INTERLUDE 99 

about 1490 by Medwall and printed by Rastell. Not known 
to exist, unless in a fragment of two leaves (B. M., Harl. 
5919, f. 20, 98), Repr. Malone Soc. " Collections," I, ii, 1909, 
137-142.] 

Rastell, John : The Nature of the Four Elements. Facsim- 
ile, J. S. Farmer, 1908. Reprinted, J. O. Halliwell, 1847 ; 
Hazlitt's Dodsley, vol. i, 1874 ; Julius Fisher, Marburg, 1903. 

Redford, John : Wit and Science. Facsimile, J. S. Farmer, 
1908. Printed, J. O. Halliwell, Shakespeare Society, 1848 ; 
J. M. Manly, Specimens, i, 1897 ; J. S. Farmer, " Lost " Tudor 
Plays, 1907. Discussion : J. Seifert, " Wit und Science — Mo- 
ralitaten," Prague, 1892. 

Marriage of Wit and Science. Printed by Thomas Marche, 
n. d. Facsimile, J. S. Farmer, 1909. Reprinted, Hazlitt's Dods- 
ley, ii, 1874. 

Merbury, Francis : The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom. 
MS. dated 1579. Facsimile, Farmer, 1909, Printed, J. O. Halli- 
well, Shakespeare Society, 1846. 

II. Interludes illustrating the Tudor Modification of 

THE " Full-Scope Morality " 

The World and the Child (Mundus et Infans). Printed, 
Wynkyn de Worde, 1522. Facsimile, Farmer, 1909. Reprinted, 
Roxhurghe Club, 1817 ; Collier, Dodsley, xii ; Hazlitt, Dodsley, i, 
1874 ; Manly, Specimens, i, 1897. Discussion : H. N. Mac- 
Cracken, " A Source of Mundus et Infans," Publ. Mod. Lang. 
Assoc, 23, 486-496. 
Hickscorner. Printed, Wynkyn de Worde, n. d. Facsimile, 
Farmer, 1908. 2d ed. J. Waley. Reprinted, Hawkins, i, 1773 ; 
Hazlitt, Dodsley, i, 1874 ; Manly, Specimens, i, 1897. 
Youth, Interlude of. Three early editions: — 

(a) Fragment of 4 leaves at Lambeth Palace (printed by 

W. de Worde ?) 
(6) "The Enterlude of Youth" (c. 1560), Wm. Copland. 

Copy in B. M. 
(c) " The uterlude of Youth " (c. 1557), J. Waley. Copy in B. 
M. Facsimile of (b), Farmer, 1908 ; of (a) and (c), 1909. 
Reprinted, Hazlitt, Dodsley, ii, 1874; W. Bang and R. B. 
McKerrow, Materialien, xii, 1905 ; J. S. Farmer, Six 
Anon. Plays (2d Series), 1906. 



100 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Wever, R. : Lusty Juventus. Three early editions are 
known : — '' 

(a) Printed by W. Copland. Copy in B. M. 

(b) " " A. Vele. Copy in the Bodleian. 

(c) " " J. Awdely. Copy in B. M. n. d. 
Facsimile of (c), Farmer, 1907. Reprinted, Hawkins, i, 1773; 
Hazlitt, Dodsley, ii, 1874; J. S. Farmer, Dramatic Writings 
of R, Wever and Th. Ingclend, 1905. 

III. Interludes of Political Purpose 

Skelton, John: Magnificence, n. d. Reprinted, J. Littledale, 
Roxburghe Club, 1821 ; A. Dyce, Poetical Works of Skelton, 
1843, vol. i ; R. L. Ramsay, E. E. T. S., 1908 for 1906. (Lost 
Plays of Skelton : Nigramansir, cf. Warton, History of Eng. 
Poetry, ed. 1871, iii, 287 ; Interlude of Virtue, and Comedy 
Achademios mei^tioned in Skelton's " Garlande of Law- 
rell.") 

Lindsay, Sir David : Satire of the Three Estates. Text 
preserved in 
(a) Bannatyne MS., 1568. Selected comic portions. Ed. Hun- 

terian Club — 
(J) Printed, Robert Charteris, Edinburgh, 1602. Complete, 

except for Cupar of Fife " Proclamation." 
Reprinted in Lindsay's Works, ed. Chalmers, 1800 ; ed. D. 
Laing, 1879 ; ed. F. Hall, E. E. T. S., 1869. 

Respublica. MS. 1553. Facsimile, Farmer, 1908. Printed, J. P. 
Collier, Illustrations of Old English Literature, i, 1866 ; A 
Brandl, Quellen, 1898 ; L. A. Magnus, E. E. T. S., 1905 ; 
J. S. Farmer, « Lost " Tudor Plays, 1907. 

[To this class probably belonged the lost play by John Roo, acted 
at Gray's Inn, Christmas, 1527-28, which treated the separa- 
tion of Lord Governaunce and Lady Publike-wele by means 
of Dissipation and Negligence. Cf. Hall's account, quoted 
by Collier, vol. i, 103.] 

IV. Interludes of RELiGioua Controversy 
Bale, John : Dramatic Writings, ed. J. S. Farmer, 1907. 
God's Promises. Two early editions known : — (a) ed. with- 
out date ; (6) 1577. Facsimile of (a), J. S. Farmer, 1908. 



THE TUDOR INTERLUDE 101 

Reprinted, Dodsley, all editions ; Everyman and other Inter- 
ludes, 1909. 

John Baptist Preaching in the Wilderness. Ed., u. d. 
Reprinted, Harleian Miscellany, {, 97, 1744; 2d ed., 1808, i, 
101. 

The Temptation of Our Lord. Ed., n. d. Facsimile, J. S. 
Farmer, 1909. Reprinted, A. B. Grosart, Misc. of Fuller's 
Worthies Library, i, 1870. 

The Three Law^s. Two early editions are known: — 

(a) n. d. (" per Nicolaum Bamburgeusem ") Facsimile, J. S. 

Farmer, 1908. 

(b) 1562, printed for Th. Col well, (a) Reprinted, A. SchvoeeT, 

Anglia,v (1882). 
John, King of England. MS., Chats worth. Facsimile , Mate- 
rialien, xxv, 1909. Printed, J. P. Collier, Camden Society, 
1838 ; Manly, Specimens, i, 1897. 

New Custom. Ed. 1573. Facsimile, J. S. Farmer, 1908. Re- 
printed, Dodsley (Reed & Collier, vol. i; Hazlitt, vol. iii). 

Robin Conscience. Reprinted, W. C. Hazlitt, Early Popular 
Poetry, iii. 

John Bon and Mast Parson. Printed by John Day and 
Wm. Seres, n. d. Reprinted, J. Smeeton, W. H. Black, Percy 
Society, xxx, 1852. 

[To this class seem to have belonged also the four plays men- 
tioned as his own by Thomas Wylley : " A Reverent Re- 
ceiving of the Sacrament," " A Rude Commonalty," " The 
Woman on the Rock," and a play against the " Pope's Coun- 
sellors." Cf. Wylley's letter to Cromwell, quoted by Collier, 
i, 129, 130.] 

V. Interludes intended fob Amusement only 

Heywood, John : Dramatic Writings, ed. J. S. Farmer, 1905. 
The Play of Love. Two early editions are known : — 

(a) Ed. 1534. Copy in Magdalene College, Cambridge. 

Wm. Rastell. 
(h) Incomplete copy in the Bodleian. John Waley. Facsimile 
of {b), J. S. Farmer, 1909. (6) Reprinted, Brandl, 
Quellen, 1898. Discussion : W. W. Greg, Archiv, 106 
(1901), 141-143. 



102 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Play of the Weather. Two early editions : — 

(a) Ed. 1533. Facsimile, J. S. Farmer, 1909. Wm. Rastell. 

(b) Ed. 1565? 'Facsimile, J. S. Farmer, 1908. Anthony 
Kytson. Reprinted, A. Brandl, Quellen, 1898; A. W. Pollard, 
Representative English Comedies, 1903. Discussion : F. Holt- 
hausen, " Zu John Heywood's Wetterspiel," Herrig^s A rchiv, 
116 (1906), pp. 103, 104 ; J. Q. Adams, "John Heywood's 
Play of the Weather," Mod. Lang. Notes, 22, 1907. 

The Pardoner and the Friar. Printed, Wm. Rastell, 1533. 
Facsimile, J. S. Farmer, 1909. Reprinted, F. J. Child, Four 
Old Plays, Cambridge, U. S. A., 1848 ; Hazlitt, Dodsley, i, 
1874. 
John John the Husband, Tyb his "Wife, and Sir John 
the Priest. Ed. 1533-34. Facsimile, J. S. Farmer, 1909. 
Reprinted, Chiswick Press, 1819 ; Brandl, Quellen, 1898 ; 
A. W. Pollard, Representative English Comedies, 1903 ; J. S. 
Farmer, Two Tudor Shrew Plays, 1908. 
The Four P's. Three early editions : (a) Printed by Wm. 
Myddleton ; (i) Wm. Copland ; (c) John Allde, 1569. Fac- 
simile of (a), Farmer, 1908. Reprinted, Dodsley, all edi- 
tions ; W. Scott, Ancient British Drama, 1810, vol. i ; Manly, 
Specimens, i, 1897. 
■Witty and W^itlesa. MS., signed by Heywood. Facsimile, 
J. S. Farmer, 1909. Printed, F. W. Fairholt, Percy Society, 
XX, 1846 (abridg. ed.). 
General Discussion of Heywood : Wilhelm Swoboda, " John Hey- 
wood als Dramatiker," Wiener Beitrdge, 1888 ; Karl Young, 
" Influence of French Farce upon the plays of John Heywood," 
Mod. Phil., ii (1904) ; W. Bang, "Acta Anglo-Lovaniensia. 
John Heywood und sein Kreis." Engl. Stud., 38 (1907), 234- 
245. 
Of Gentleness and Nobility. Two parts. Printed, without 
date, by John Rastell. Facsimile, J. S. Farmer, 1908. Reprinted, 
J. H. Burn, 1829 ; J. S. Farmer, Early English Dramatists, 1908. 
Tom Tyler and His Wife. "An Excellent Old Play, as It was 
Printed and Acted about a hundred Years ago. . . . The sec- 
ond Impression. London, Printed in the Year, 1661." Re- 
printed, F. E, Schelling, Publ. Mod. Lang. Assoc, xv (1900) ; 
J. S. Farmer, Six Anonymous Plays (2d Series), 1906 ; Malone 
Society, 1910. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE INTERLUDE IN TRANSITION 

At a period roughly synchronizing with the commence- 
ment of Queen EUzabeth's reign (1558) and the birth 
of Shakespeare (1564), the native interlude began to be 
supplanted as the fashionable and progressive type of 
drama by plays of different character and for the most 
part of foreign origin. But the interlude was much 
too deep-rooted either to be discarded at once or to 
be easily merged in the newer forms. Plays of allegori- 
cal content deriving immediately from the morality 
remain common till the accession of James I, while in 
Thomas Nabbes's " Microcosmos " (1634) the species 
crops up again very near the end of the Caroline 
era. 

Most of these late interludes are intrinsically dull. 
The shift in popular dramatic interest deprived them 
of the opportunity for natural evolution; they merely 
repeat the old stock incidents and devices, and there 
is no longer any jauntiness in their plagiarism. The 
poverty in content and lack of resourcefulness natural 
to the entire morality species appear nowhere more 
glaringly than in these last survivals of the type. Such 
threadbare motives as the quarrels of vices and virtues 
or the masquerading of vice under the cloak of virtue 
are retained for mere convention's sake, sometimes to 
the positive detriment of the action and sense. How- 
ever uninteresting in itself, the decadent interlude is 
yet the necessary object of study for all who would 



104 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

trace the rise of the popular EUzabethan drama. In 
it is manifested that gradual blending of moribund 
native convention with foreign importation and rash 
experiment, through which was finally consummated 
the art form of Shakespeare and his fellows, — a form 
thoroughly national, on the one hand, and in the best 
sense conservative, while, on the other hand, it lent 
itself to the freest extension of range and the freshest 
treatment of new themes. 

The systematic classification of the transitional in- 
terludes is a work of impossibility, for the extant speci- 
mens display neither continuity of type nor, very 
often, any trace of literary consciousness. They arose 
during a period which had largely given up the old 
canons of criticism, and had not yet attained to new 
ones, and they are almost exclusively the production of 
amateurs, — spontaneous off -shoots from the ancient 
dramatic stock, affected in every conceivable degree 
and manner by the new features which the more de- 
liberate dramatists were busied in grafting upon it. 

The lately recovered play of "John the Evangelist" 
is probably an early example of the transitional ten- 
dency in the interlude.^ Though the work belongs for- 
mally to the old species of moral allegory, there is no 
real purpose either in the symbolism or in the religious 

• John the Evangelist has not been satisfactorily dated. The activ- 
ities of the printer of the extant edition. John Waley, seem to have 
extended from 1546 to 1586. Eugenie's speech, "By my fayth ye 
shall be hanpeman of Calj's," points to a date pre\'ious to the loss of 
Calais in 1558. and the general style of the piece likewise indicates 
the reign of Mary as the latest possible period of composition. It is 
perhaps hazardous to accept the entry — "1 saint jon euuangeliste 
en trelute [? enterludc]" in the Day Book of John Dome as proving 
this play's existence in 1520. See Malone Soc. ed. 



THE INTERLUDE IN TRANSITION 105 

teaching. Of the six speakers — St. John, Eugenio, 
Irisdision, Actio, Evil Counsel, and Idleness — only 
the last three are in any true sense allegorical, and their 
function is almost purely comic. There exists hardly 
a trace of plot or dramatic action. Evil Counsel and 
Idleness have nothing to do with any of the other char- 
acters. They come in like clowns in a variety show, to 
regale the audience with a comic dialogue and the nar- 
ration of various farcical experiences, and go out, not 
to reappear. Eugenio and Actio behave indecorously 
in the earlier part of the play and repent at the close of 
St. John's discourse, but they stand for no particular 
vices, and are not in any special degree antagonists of 
the good characters, wlio themselves are so Uttle differ- 
entiated as to leave room for doubt whether the author 
intended to represent in St. John and Irisdision two 
persons or one.^ 

In the absence of any definite knowledge concerning 
the sources of this drama, it is not easy to conjecture 
what can have suggested to the poet the names John 
the Evangelist, Irisdision, and Eugenio. The last is 
particularly striking as an apparent indication of the 
tendency to replace symbolic appellations by concrete 
names drawn from history or romance. However, 
Eugenio's character fails to justify the romantic pro- 
mise of his name. He is but a weak variation of the 
usual type of vicious youth, who, though able to scoff 
feebly at the pious Irisdision, is in the end so much dis- 
quieted by that sage's lurid picture of the dangers of 
the primrose path of dalliance as to require much 

1 Cf. H. Bradley. Mod. Lang. Revieic, July, 1907; W. H. Wil- 
liams, " Irisdision in the Interlude of Johan the Euangelyst," Mod. 
Lang. Review, July, 1903. 



106 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

encouragement from Actio before he can betake him- 
self with any zest to vicious courses. 

It is noticeable that this play, which would seem to 
have been composed by a mild supporter of the old 
religion, is as far from championing any sectarian be- 
lief as it is from pointing a specific moral. Whether 
from excess of prudence or lack of originality, the au- 
thor expresses his conceptions of good and evil with a 
tridy mediaeval vagueness. The way to the Castle of 
Zion passes, according to Irisdision, over the mead of 
meekness to the path of patience, thence to the lawn 
of largeness, and the lane of business; while the "via 
obliqua" leads to death and the lady of confusion, who 
is called Babylon. The description of the isle of sin is 
so thoroughly in the tone of Langland and the four- 
teenth century that it is difficult to believe the play a 
genuine product of the Reformation epoch: — 

"With bowes and trees it is meruaylously paled. 
There groweth the elders of enuye 
Staked with pryde full hye. 

And the breres of bnkbytyng with wrath wrethed aboute 
Full of sloutby busshes and lecherous thornes drye. 
With glotonous piwtes and couetyse rayled throughoute. 
And at myscheues gate many dothe in ronne." 

A considerable group of interludes, extending 
throughout the entire reign of Elizabeth, deal with 
problems arising out of fluctuations in fortime. Several 
of these, like the earlier "Magnificence" and "Respub- 
lica," have, besides their economic interest, a more or 
less distinct political bias. Such is the play of "Wealth 
and Health," entered on the Stationers' Register, July 
19, 1557, though the concluding prayer for Queen 
Elizabeth shows that the extant edition cannot be 



THE INTERLUDE IN TRANSITION 107 

earlier than November 17, 1558. The plot narrates 
rambHngly and somewhat confusedly the misfortunes 
of Wealth, Health, and Liberty, the three glories of the 
English nation, at the hands of the vices, 111 Will and 
Shrewd Wit, who by means of "waste and war" bring 
them to destitution, disease, and captivity, till in the 
end they are relieved by Good Remedy. A seventh 
member of the dramatis personce is of much importance. 
Hans Beerpot, the drunken Fleming, though occasion- 
ally referred to as typifying War, is a concrete person- 
age who cuts a rather surprising figure among the ab- 
stractions of the piece. He is brought upon the stage 
soliciting in an impossible Dutch jargon the post of 
cannoneer, and is heartily reviled by all the other 
speakers, good and bad. Ultimately he gets his dis- 
missal from Good Remedy, who accuses him of spiriting 
away Englishmen's wealth to Flanders by means of 
war. "There is too many aliants in this realm," says 
Good Remedy pointedly, and concludes, regardless of 
Hans's protestations of love for the English: " Get thee 
hence, drunken Fleming! Thou shalt tarry no longer 
here." The satire of the play seems to be directed 
specifically against the very unpopular and expensive 
war in Flanders during the year previous to Mary's 
death (1557-1558). But back of the allegorical signifi- 
cance of Hans, who as Flemish War causes the dissipa- 
tion of English Wealth, there lies a more general satire 
upon the pushing and deceitful alien, — a class exces- 
sively hated during the entire Tudor period. In this 
attack there is nothing allegorical or symbolic. The 
swaggering foreigner who oppresses native merit was 
one of the commonest butts of the realistic comedy. 
The first two acts of "Sir Thomas More" represent the 



108 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

rising against the Lombards on 111 May Day, and out- 
breaks against the Flemings themselves were certainly 
no less violent during Elizabeth's reign than in the time 
of Chaucer, when "Jakke Straw and his meynee," as 
that poet tells us ("Nun's Priest's Tale," 11. 575-577) 
"wolden any Fleming kille." 

That the figure of Hans was successful is shown 
by the reappearance of the character, supported by a 
duplicate, Philip Fleming, in Ulpian Fulwell's "Like 
Will to Like," first printed in 1568. This last produc- 
tion, entitled in full "Like Will to Like, Quod the 
Devil to the Collier," is on several accounts one of the 
most striking of the later interludes, and would seem 
to be solely responsible for several generalizations of 
modern writers about the type. It shows the morality 
stuff already half absorbed in realistic comedy, and it 
attests in its author both a considerable skill in the 
production of stage effect and a colossal effrontery in 
plagiarism. The sixteen characters are pretty equally 
divided between moral abstractions like Virtuous Life, 
God's Promise, and Good Fame, and low comic types 
such as Tom Tosspot, Ralph Roister, Pierce Pick- 
purse,^ and Tom Collier. The vice of this play, Nichol 
Newfangle, is the most imposing of his class. He rallies 
the audience with all the assurance of a star comedian, 
and patronizes Lucifer himself. He compasses a good 
deal of petty knavery, and suffers at least partial 
retribution from two of his dupes; but he manifests 
throughout all the aplomb of Autolycus, whom, indeed, 
he much resembles when he comes upon the stage with 

* For an explanation of the pun implied in this name, where 
Pierce is to be pronounced "Purse," see H. N. MacCracken, New 
York Nation, 86 (1908), 146. 



THE INTERLUDE IN TRANSITION 109 

"a bag, a staff, a bottle, and two halters, going about 
the place, showing it unto the audience," and singing, 
"Trim merchandise, trim, trim; trim merchandise, 
trim, trim." And finally, no whit dismayed, he takes his 
leave of the spectators, and rides off to hell, like his imi- 
tator in Greene's "Friar Bacon," on the devil's back. 

Another play, dealing, like "Wealth and Health," 
with changes of fortune, is the "Newe Interlude of 
Impacyente Pouerte," newly imprinted in 1560 by 
John King, where the titular hero, entering very "im- 
patient" and unmannerly indeed, is reformed into 
Prosperity by the virtue Peace. Later, however, he is 
beguiled by Envy, disguised as Charity, and Misrule 
in the garb of Mirth, and is by them delivered over to 
Colhazard, the gambler, who rooks him of two thou- 
sand pounds. The metamorphosis back to Poverty 
thus easily accomplished, the hero is deserted by his de- 
ceivers and left to the harsh usage of a very Chaucerian 
Sumner, only vaguely identified with the abstraction 
Falsehood, from whom Peace at length delivers him. 

To this same dramatic class, and to the same period, 
belongs apparently the play of "Albion Knight," li- 
censed to Thomas Colwell in 1565-1566. This piece, 
which is known, unfortunately, only from a single 
fragment containing six leaves out of the earlier por- 
tion, dealt to an even greater extent than "Wealth and 
Health" with political matters. The extant lines are 
mainly concerned with the elaboration of a plot 
whereby the vices. Injury and Division, hope to sepa- 
rate Albion from Justice, and prevent his marriage 
with "fayre dame plentie," the daughter of Peace. 

The contemporary "Trial of Treasure," printed in 
1567, is one of the most inconsequential of Tudor 



110 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

dramas. The title has Httle appropriateness, for 
Treasure appears only in the last third of the work, and 
is never brought to actual trial. The play seems lack- 
ing in plot and purpose, possibly because the key to its 
topical or political allusions has been lost; but it con- 
tains some excellent snatches of song and several strik- 
ing situations. Such, for example, are the spirited 
wrestling match between Lust and Just, and the 
shackling of the vice. Inclination, whom the redoubt- 
able Just leads forward in the final scene, bridled like 
Tamburlaine's "pampered jades of Asia." 
"The most conspicuous feature of the last interludes 
is their pronounced tendency, when free from outside 
influence, to revert to the general form and tone of the 
early morality. As the species lost its hold upon the 
fashionable public, it passed naturally out of the hands 
of non-moral, professional entertainers like Heywood 
into those of unprogressive, leisurely poetasters, who 
appear to have belonged largely to the clerical profes- 
sion, and whose object was more frequently edification 
than amusement. Thus, the artificial conditions which 
produced the compression, simplicity, and wit of the 
interlude of Henry VIII 's reign were removed, and 
there resulted during the early years of Elizabeth a 
very marked relapse toward the tedious rambling 
structiu-e, multiplicity of characters, and large homi- 
letic infusion which belong to fifteenth-century works 
like "The Castle of Perseverance," "The Conversion 
of Mary Magdalene," "Wisdom," and "Nature." 
This change was, of course, an evidence of decay. The 
expansion of the Heywoodian norm of eight or nine 
hundred lines and four or five well - individualized 
figures into long, slow-moving works, averaging two 



THE INTERLUDE IN TRANSITION 111 

thousand lines and employing from fifteen to forty 
characters, was but a process of fatty degeneration 
which accompanied the loss of sinew and vitality. 

Four excellent examples of this last phase of the 
strict moral play are preserved from the first quarter 
of Elizabeth's reign: Lewis Wager's "Life and Repent- 
ance of Marie Magdalene," 1566; George Wapull's 
"Tide Tarrieth No Man," 1576; T. Lupton's "All for 
Money," 1578 ; and an undated work of the same period 
by W. Wager, "The Longer Thou Li vest the More Fool 
Thou Art." In all these compositions one misses en- 
tirely the dramatic skill and high evolutionary possi- 
bilities of the secularized, abbreviated interludes of 
the previous half-century, while one feels still more 
strongly the absence of that representative character 
which makes many of the most diffuse and formless 
fifteenth-century moralities social documents of the 
highest value. Thus destitute as they were both of 
dramatic power and of popular intellectual appeal, the 
stray Elizabethan remnants of the old type found 
themselves against a dead wall, with no possible chance 
of continuance or progress, while the vigorous theatri- 
cal current of the day was deflected by various alien 
influences, and passed from Heywood to Lyly, Kyd, 
and Marlowe by the way of certain experimental 
medleys which will demand discussion in the later 
portion of this chapter. 

Yet the moribund species represented by the four 
dramas named above does not merit the entire dis- 
regard which has often befallen it. Though they did 
nothing to advance English dramatic art, these plays 
reflect many characteristics of earlier practice. Fiu*- 
thermore, they were evidently written with great care 



112 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

by well-educated, if untalented, authors, and they 
illustrate not inadequately the general level of poetic 
taste and metrical achievement during the rather bar- 
ren period between Tottel's "Miscellany" (1557) and 
the appearance of Spenser (1579). 

"A new Enterlude, neuer before this tjone imprynted, 
entreating of the Life and Repentaunce of Marie 
Magdalene. . . . Made by the learned clarke Lewis 
Wager," was printed in 1566, after having been entered 
on the Stationers' Register during the same year. A 
second edition appeared in 1567. Though certainly 
belonging to the morality class, this play varies in a 
number of particulars from the ordinary type, and 
bears pretty clear witness to the influence of John 
Bale. In agreement with the usual practice of the lat- 
ter poet, the allegorical figures appear in connection 
with real Biblical incidents and with certain concrete 
characters. Thus, in the play before us, eleven sym- 
bolic actors are associated with the three historic per- 
sonages of Mary Magdalene, Simon the Pharisee, and 
Christ. Again, the vice, Infidelity, bears the same 
name as in Bale's "Three Laws," is similarly repre- 
sented as the leader of the powers of evil, and in both 
plays shows only the most incidental traces of comedy. 
The great difference between Bale and his apparent 
imitator lies in the much less strongly marked contro- 
versial tone of the latter. Wager, indeed, is known to 
have been, like Bale, an Anglican clergyman, — he was 
rector of Garlickhithe in 1560, — but his play breathes 
no such fiery anti-Roman polemic as the dramas of the 
other poet; and this moderation of theological doc- 
trine, while largely accounting for the flatness of " Mary 
Magdalene" in comparison with "The Three Laws," 



THE INTERLUDE IN TRANSITION 113 

points also to a later period of composition. It seems 
to me likely — in disagreement with the opinion of the 
editor of the play — that Mary Magdalene was com- 
posed after the heat of religious controversy had sub- 
sided, and not long, probably, before its publication. 

The piece opens with an interesting defence of acted 
plays and a remonstrance against the Puritan detract- 
ors of the histrionic "faculty." Yet everything shows 
how utterly impossible it must have been for such a 
production to gain the attention of the captious audi- 
ences which the earlier interludes had amused. Through 
a total length of more than twenty-one hundred lines 
the interest steadily declines. The only readable por- 
tion is that which depicts the perversion of Mary by 
the vices of Infidelit5% Pride, Cupidity, and Carnal 
Concupiscence; and this portion extends little beyond 
the first third of the play. The rest is a peculiarly tame 
rehandling of Scriptural narrative, with no central plot 
or clearness of character portrayal. Difficult to read, 
and nearly intolerable, one would suppose, to witness, 
the drama fails equally in each of the two qualities 
which had served to animate the earlier interludes. 
Though it possesses a few realistic touches, of which 
the best are the exclamations of Mary upon her ill- 
made, "bungarly" garments and her inattentive wait- 
ing maids, there is little conscious attempt at humor 
either of incident or character. Nor, on the other 
hand, do the vices — Infidelity and his satellites — 
make up for their comparative deficiency in comic 
interest by that close connection with contemporary 
evils in church and society which gives point and dra- 
matic effectiveness to the similar creations of Bale. 

"The Tide Tarrieth No Man," registered October 



114 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

22, 1576, and published in the same year, is thus a 
decade subsequent to Wager's " Mary Magdalene " in 
the date of its appearance; and it stands perceptibly 
nearer to realistic comedy. Its eighteen dramatis per- 
sonce are divided between allegorical abstractions and 
such type figures as the Tenant, the Courtier, and the 
Sergeant. In Greediness the Merchant the two cate- 
gories are united. The scene is distinctly laid in con- 
temporary London, and the interest of the piece is 
wholly economic, rather than moral, historic, or po- 
lemical, so that the play finds its most natural position 
as a continuation of the species represented by "Res- 
publica" and "Wealth and Health." Though only a 
couple of hundred lines shorter than Wager's moral- 
Biblical drama, and hardly less confused in plot, the 
present work, which the title-page states to have been 
"compiled by George WapuU," is a considerably more 
entertaining production. It has at least the merit of a 
single definite theme: the injury done to the commu- 
nity by the inhuman rapacity of the usurers and mer- 
chants of the day. This theme is set forth in the Pro- 
logue, and it is illustrated through the whole course of 
the drama in the misfortunes of an impoverished cour- 
tier, a tormented tenant, and a debtor arrested while 
attending a preaching at Paul's Cross. The play ends 
conventionally, but most unrealistically, with the in- 
tervention of Christianity in propria persona, sup- 
ported by Faithful Few, Authority, and Correction. 
The action is complicated by the intrusion of a plot 
suggestive of interludes of foreign influence like "The 
Disobedient Child," ^ in which are presented the con- 
sequences of the rash marriage of Wastefulness with 
1 See p. 125 ff. 



THE INTERLUDE IN TRANSITION 115 

the maid Wantonness. Wastefulness is soon brought 
to destitution; and in a scene strikingly like one of 
Spenser's is being tempted by Despair "in some ougly 
shape" to kill himself "with Cord or with knyfe," 
when Faithful Few rescues him and puts the mon- 
ster to flight by means of prayer to the Heavenly 
Father. 1 

The vice of this play, Courage, is decidedly the most 
interesting in the group, and he speaks nearly one 
third of the lines of the drama (585 out of 1879). The 
entirely a-moral tone of the work is well indicated by 
the fact that Courage, though he has command of the 
Barge of Sin, and though he is finally led away to jail 
by Correction after much pernicious activity, does not 
symbolize any theological vice, and, as the author very 
candidly admits, may incite to good as well as evil. It 
is evident that the tendency of the mediaeval moralists 
to divide all mundane phenomena into the two rigid 
groups of the righteous and the unrighteous — a 
tendency which we have found the author of "Nature" 
already tacitly questioning on the very threshold of the 
Renaissance ^ — has in this play of Wapull entirely 
broken down. And it was this mediaeval root-idea of 
the essential hostility and incompatibility of the forces 
of good and evil upon which was based the entire 
morality convention. 

"The Tide Tarrieth No Man" illustrates well the 
metrical peculiarities of this group of late interludes, — 
the wreckage, as it were, of the old morality fashion. 
The construction of the strict pentameter line, though 

* Cf. Faerie Queene, Book I, Canto ix, stanzas 49-54; and Mar- 
lowe's Doctor Faustus, 11. 630 ff. 
« See p. 73. 



116 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

known to Skelton,^ seems hardly to have been under- 
stood by these authors. Instead, they employ the de- 
praved measure into which the Chaucerian pentameter 
had broken during the fifteenth century, — a metre 
consisting most often of four stresses, with an inde- 
finite number of slightly accented syllables. The differ- 
ence between assonance and rime seems also hardly 
to have been appreciated; imperfect rimes abound. 
Otherwise, however, these plays are written with an 
excess of care. Wapull gives greatest prominence to the 
quatrain form with alternate rime, almost precisely 
half his play being written in that measure. Riming 
couplets are employed through another quarter of the 
work (four hundred and fifty lines), less, probably, be- 
cause of any lighter tone in the dialogue than from the 
simple desire of variety. Rime royal — the conven- 
tional aristocratic seven -line stanza — appears in 
.about two hu^idred lines of especial gravity: in the 
author's Prologue (1-56) ; the laments of the "Tenaunt 
tormented" (794-835), the impoverished courtier 
(1082-1116) and the arrested debtor (1393-1406) ; and 
in the first long speeches of Christianity and Faithful 
Few (1440-1488). One entire scene, that between 
Courage and Wilful Wanton, or Wantonness (11. 836- 
967) , is written in a metrical freak, — quatrains with 
a single rime (aaaa, bbbb, etc.). 

Three song measures are used with skill : aabccb (57- 
158), ababcc (291-311), and ababccdd (1337-1358). 
The period to which this play belongs, the earlier half 
of Elizabeth's reign, was essentially a lyric period, and 
the four songs introduced into the piece far exceed the 

* The best discussion of Skclton's use of metre for dramatic 
purposes will be found in R. L. Ramsay's edition of Magnificence. 



THE INTERLUDE IN TRANSITION 117 

body of the text in literary merit. It is only, indeed, in 
such snatches of song as the following that one recog- 
nizes WapuU and his companions for what they were, — 
serious-minded litterateurs conscientiously writing up 
to the height of the artistic standards of their age: — 

"We haue great gayne, with little payne. 
And lightly spend it to: 
We doe not toyle, nor yet we moyle. 
As other pore folkes do. 
We are winners all three. 
And so will we bee. 
Where euer that we come a: 
Fof we know how, 
To bend and bow 
And what is to be done a. 

"Though Wastfulnesse and Wantonnesse, 
Some men haue vs two named: 
Yet pleasauntnesse and plyauntnesse, 
Our names we haue now framed, 
For as I one is pleasaunt, to kisse and to cully. 
The other is plyaunt as euer was holly. 

As Youth would it haue, 

So will we be braue." 

T. Lupton's "Moral and Pitiful Comedie Intituled 
All for Money. Plainly representing the manners of 
men and fashion of the world noweadays" (1578) is re- 
lated in its contemporary and economic interest to a 
number of the works hitherto discussed, and like sev- 
eral of them, it seems to have attempted to ensure 
itself against uncertainty concerning the proper dra- 
matic model by a mixture of characters and incidents 
from all the known fields. Its huge total of thirty -one 
dramatis personoe is made up partly from Scripture 
direct, as in the case of Dives, Judas, Satan; partly 



118 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

from religious ullogory {e. g.. Godly Admonition, 
IVitlc, (iluttony); partly from scholastic terminology 
(Theology, Art, Science). Figures such as Learning 
with Money, Learning without Money, Money with- 
out Learning, Neither Money nor Learning suggest the 
old dcbat, which we have seen revived by Heywood 
in "Witty and Witless" and the "Play of Love." So- 
cial tyi)es are presented in Prest for Pleasure and Swift 
to Sin; while realistic comedy is frankly introduced in 
(iregory Graceless, William witli the two wives, Nichol 
Never out of the Law (a rich franklin). Mother Croote, 
and Sir Laurence Livingless, the foolish Ronumist 
t)arson. who decries the Rcformali«m and Ihc transla- 
tion of Scripture. Those who sat through the sixteen 
hundred lines of this play witnessed a performance 
in no way less comprehensive or spectacular than 
the modern variety entertainment. All the costmnes 
were striking, and some of the feats of prestidigitation 
veritably astounding. One scene presents with a vivid- 
ness not easily surpassed a pessimistic view of the con- 
sequences of wealth. Money enters with great boasts 
of his ])ower over all conditions of men, and seats him- 
self in state to receive the homage of his follower. 
Adulation. Suddenly he is overcome with sickness, 
and the stage direction explains, "TTere Money shal 
make as tlu>ugh he would vomit, and with some tine 
conueyance Pleasure shal appeare from beneath, and 
lie there apparelled." IVFoney goes out, leaving his 
son Pleasure to undergo the same distressing ortleal, 
whence arises Sin, the vice. Sin inlierits the family 
disease and voitiits Danmation, who is to be "finely 
conucyed as the other was before, who shal haue a 
terrible A-ysard on his face and his garment shal be 



THE INTERLUDE IN TRANSITION 119 

painted with flames of fire." The titular hero of the 
pieee, "All for Money," is a venal magistrate, who 
proclaims through the vice Sin, that all suitors coming 
in the name of Money, "Be their matter neuer so 
wrong, they shalbe sped ami not tarrie." The peti- 
tioners accordingly appear very much as in Heywood's 
" Play of the Weather," which most likely gave Lupton 
a number of hints. 

A feeble and entirely unsuccessful attempt at re- 
crudescence of the old serious spirit and broad scope of 
the morality manifests itself in the undated interlude of 
W. Wager, entitled: "The longer thou liuest the more 
foole thou art. A Myrrour very necessarie for youth, 
and specially for such as are like to come to dignitieand 
promotion." The plot follows the career of the fool, 
Moros, from the time when as a schoolboy he mocks 
and neglects the good Protestant admonition of his 
pedagogues. Discipline, Pity, and Exercitation, till he 
is smitten down in gray old age by God's Judgment, 
and carried oif "to the Deuill" by Confusion. But so 
ambitious a scheme was quite disproportioned to the 
author's powders of execution. Not only does he fail — 
as any writer of his generation nnist in this species 
have inevitably failed — of reproducing the stern 
Miltonic dignity of "Everyman" and "The Castle of 
Perseverance." lie shows himself unable to sustain 
even an artificial unity through the length of two thou- 
sand lines, and his large patchwork structure creaks 
and groans through every joint. The only readable 
fragments are a few frankly occasional and .topical in- 
sertions, such as Moros*s two interesting centos of odd 
lines from popular songs of the day, and People's 
quaint alphabetical list of the followers of Moros : — 



120 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

"Syr Anthony Arrogant, Auditour, 
Bartilmew brybor, Bayly: 
Clement Catchpole, CofiFerer, 
Diuision, doublefaced dauie, 
Edmund enuiouse, chiefe of the Eawery, 
Fabian falshode, his head farmer, 
Gregory gorbely, the goutie, 
Gouerneth the grayne in the garner," etc.^ 

The time was now well past when a respectable 
drama could be produced by any writer who brought 
to his task only the heritage of mediaeval convention. 
The life and spirit of the hour were everywhere abroad 
and pushed themselves inevitably into all imagina- 
tive works not engendered in an absolute intellectual 
vacuum. Two very late interludes "The Conflict of 
Conscience" and "The Contention between Liberality 
and Prodigality" are interesting as representing in 
different ways a forlorn hope at retention of the moral- 
ity form in the face of new realistic influences which 
render it entirely ineffective. 

The first of these plays was written by "Nathaniell 
Woodes, Minister, in Norwich" and printed in 1581 as 
"An excellent newCommedie . . . Contayninge, A most 
lamentable example of the dolefuU desperation of a 
miserable world-linge termed by the name of Philo- 
logus, who forsooke the trueth of Gods Gospel, for feare 
of the losse of lyfe & worldly goods." The eighteen 
parts are arranged for distribution among six players, 
"most conuenient for such as be disposed either to 
shew the Comedie in priuate houses, or otherwise." 
This drama — which the Prologue excuses as a trifle 
produced, for moral edification, when the author's 

^ Such fantastic alphabets were entirely conventional. Other 
instances occur in Thersites and R. B.'s Appiua and Virginia. 



THE INTERLUDE IN TRANSITION 121 

mind was wearied "From reading grave and ancient 
works" — is plainly the creation of an amateur and a 
Protestant zealot. The piece is divided into six acts, 
presenting the career of a champion of rehgious reform, 
Philologus, who, denounced by Caconos, an ignorant 
northern priest, is brought to trial before an inquisi- 
torial body composed of a Cardinal, Tyranny (alias. 
Zeal), Avarice, and Hypocrisy. Here he stoutly vindi- 
cates his belief, till won over by Sensual Suggestion 
and the enchanted mirror in which she shows him the 
pleasures of this world. Turning a deaf ear to the warn- 
ings of his good spirit and of Conscience, the recusant 
enjoys for a time, with his two sons, the fruits of his 
compliance with Rome, but he is soon visited by Hor- 
ror and driven to the verge of suicide. In a long scene 
of twenty pages, strongly suggestive of that in which 
the scholars offer last comfort to Faustus, the despair- 
ing Philologus is reminded of the mercy of God by his 
friends Eusebius and Theologus; and the nuntius ap- 
pears in a brief epilogue, dignified by the title of Act VI, 
to declare that the penitent has renounced all his errors, 
abhorred his blasphemies, and made a godly end. 

The most remarkable thing about this awkward, but 
perfervid dramatic tract is that its ostensibly symbolic 
hero was an actual personality of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, — perhaps an Italian lawyer, Francis Spiera, 
who, after abjuring the tenets of Protestantism, com- 
mitted suicide in remorse.^ The Prologue reminds the 

^ The identification of Philologus with Spiera emanates from Col- 
lier, who is very disingenuous in his statement that " the apostasy 
of Francis Spira, or Spiera, is announced as the main subject" on the 
title-page. The title-page, on the contrary, merely refers to an 
unnamed "miserable world-linge." 



122 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

audience that the argument of the play is "a history 
strange and true, to many men well known," though 
the author has thought it meet to omit actual names. 
Thus we have the spectacle of Mr. Woodes building 
sand walls against the tide, attempting in an excess 
of theological ardor to transmute actual history into 
moral abstraction just at the time when dramatic 
progress was everj'where replacing the abstract by the 
concrete. The play has an interest, therefore, as indi- 
cating the final refuge of allegorical drama among the 
same unprogressive class of religious homilists with 
whom it began. 

"The Contention between Liberality and Prodigal- 
ity" is the last gasp of the Tudor morality. Published 
in 1605, a specific reference to February 4 of the forty- 
third year of Queen Elizabeth, seems to point to that 
date (February 4, 1601, N. S.) as the time of the 
royal presentation advertised on the title-page.^ As 
"The Conflict of Conscience" shows the allegorical 
drama revived by the archaic dilettantism of a 
preacher turned dramatist, the present play owes its 
partial adherence to the antiquated form to the con- 
fessed youthful inexperience of the writer, — probably 
a member of one of the inns of court or some similar 
play-giving institution. The plot treats the old theme 
of the vagaries of fortune, tracing the experiences of 
Money in the hands of the three rival claimants. 
Prodigality, Tenacity, and Liberality. However, there 
is no fixity of outline or purpose, and the piece is dis- 
tressingly hard to read, because the author is continu- 

* Professor Schelling {Klizahtihan Drama, ii, 554) states that the 
phiy was written 1565 and re\ased in 1601. This may have been the 
case. 



THE INTERLUDE m TRANSITION ns 

ally straying from one side to the other of the line 
which separates symbolism and actuality, obscuring 
his moral by little aimless sallies into the realm of 
picaresque realism. Neither as interlude nor as comedy 
of manners does the "Contention" merit serious con- 
sideration, but it possesses some good songs and 
serves to indicate how the well-cultivated taste for 
abstraction, languishing at this period from neglect, 
could a little later satisfy itself in the Jacobean masque. 

Thus the survivals of the old interlude which kept 
themselves closest to the early Tudor form dragged 
out a somewhat varied existence during the reign of 
Elizabeth, and perished for want of an audience. In 
other instances, however, the interlude, by making con- 
cessions to the change in taste, was able to continue its 
hold upon popular favor and to exert a not inconsider- 
able influence upon the new drama. Before the Tudor 
period was half over, the more progressive writers of 
interludes began to feel impatience at the limited pos- 
sibilities of their inherited material, and to look abroad 
for sources whence they might freshen the desiccated 
substance of the morality. Long before the death of 
Henry VIII, John Heywood had achieved an individ- 
ual tour de force by his bold introduction of new ele- 
ments from the narrative work of Chaucer and from 
contemporary French farce. Somewhat later, inter- 
ludes commence to show close kinship with the Latin 
drama prevalent at the time in Germany and Holland, 
— very largely because of the new feeling of solidarity 
produced among the Protestant nations of the north by 
the Reformation conflict. The most important Eng- 
lish plays of this nature are the anonymous "Nice 



124 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Wanton" (1560) and "The Disobedient Child" by 
Thomas Ingelend, both pubUshed after Ehzabeth's 
accession, but first composed, as there is reason to be- 
lieve, before the death of Edward VI in 1553. These 
works take up again the popular subject of perverted 
youth and treat it in conformity with the dramatic ver- 
sions of the Prodigal Son story then fashionable in the 
Latin plays of the Continent.^ 

"Nice Wanton'* ^ is one of the most successful es- 
says in the interlude form. Its five hundred and fifty- 
two lines bring it well within the small compass which 
the contemporary conditions of presentation rendered 
desirable. Its author,^ moreover, has been able to blend 
the serious didactic spirit and comprehensive outline 
of the best educational interludes, and the most eflfec- 
tive of the old stock types, as presented in Iniquity, the 
Vice, and Worldly Shame, the Nemesis, with concrete 
scenes and figures of Dutch realism in a composite 
which far exceeds the individual capabilities of either 
species. The "Rebelles," a comedy of the Dutch 
Latinist Georgius Macropedius, first published in 1535, 
has been claimed as a source of "Nice Wanton," and 

* An English version of Acolastns, the most famous of the Dutch- 
Latin plays on this theme, was executed by John Palsgrave, "Lon- 
doniensis," and published in 1540. 

^ The title of this play means, of course, not "la jolie p^cheresse," 
as M. Jusserand translates it, but rather "the foolish spoiled child," 
"der alberne Zogling." 

' The initials "T. R." printed at the end of the play in some mod- 
ern texts give no hint concerning the authorship of the play. The let- 
ters belong to the vignette inserted at the end of King's edition. 
The same vignette, with the letters, appears also at the beginning of 
King's edition of Impatient Poverty and is evidently an inheritance 
from some earlier printer with the initials T. R. 



THE INTERLUDE IN TRANSITION 125 

some relationship, lineal or collateral, certainly appears 
to exist. However, a comparison of the two works 
brings out the essential differences more strongly than 
anything else, and emphasizes the real value of the ele- 
ments which the English dramatist derived from the 
morality convention. The boisterous vigor of the songs 
and of the dialogue of the bad children, Ismael and 
Dalila, with their seducer. Iniquity; the broad sweep 
of the play, which in its brief compass — little over 
half that of the "Rebelles" — embraces the beginning 
and the end of life; most of all, the stern spirit which 
insists that the wages of sin be fully paid, refusing the 
comic termination of Macropedius, and requiring even 
of the vice, in return for his assumption of concrete 
human personality, that he expiate his offences like his 
confederate by hanging: all these qualities belong to 
"Nice Wanton," not by foreign importation, but by 
inheritance from the morality; and they indicate how 
much true force and promise the interlude still pos- 
sessed when once turned into fresh and fruitful fields. 
"The Disobedient Child" is a production of no such 
excellence as "Nice Wanton," but it shows how an 
English playwright about the middle of the sixteenth 
century could borrow a foreign plot and could con- 
siderably broaden its scope and effectiveness by the 
help of the matter which he found at home. This 
drama touches much more lightly than " Nice Wanton " 
the same theme of the just punishment which may 
befall ill-advised and self-indulgent youth. We have 
here pictured, not the criminal career and end of two 
wholly perverted children, but the folly of a pampered 
son, who, despising his father's exhortation to study, 
and the admonition to beware of women, soon finds 



126 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

himself trapped into marriage with a shrew, and desti- 
tute of the means of HveHhood. 

The source from which Ingelend derived the rough 
framework of his play is a prose dialogue of the French 
Latinist, Ravisius Textor (Jean Tixier de Ravisi, 1480- 
1524) ; but Textor's scant two hundred and thirty-five 
lines of question and answer between a colorless Pater 
Juvenis and Uxor are expanded, in the fifteen hundred 
lines of the English work, into a drama of much higher 
intensity and literary merit than the original in any 
way suggested.^ Fairly mellifluous speeches in alternate 
rime succeed the laconic clumsiness of mediaeval prose 
latinity. Two songs are introduced in deference to 
native practice, of which the first at least possesses real 
beauty, and prologue and epilogue are added. The 
three main figures are depicted with a leisurely atten- 
tion to concrete detail entirely foreign to Textor's 
method, and they are supplemented by five new comic 
characters in the man cook and woman cook, the 
priest, the prodigal's servant, and Satan himself, — the 
last brought upon the stage in frank reminiscence of 
the English mystery, to amuse the audience with his 
shout, — 

" Ho, ho, ho, what a fellow am I ! 
Give room, I say, both more and less;" 

and to moralize the immediately foregoing picture of 
marital discord. The five ineffective and ill-Connected 
scenes of Textor are altered, multiplied, and in one 

' There survives a single printed leaf out of an English interlude 
which appears to have followed the same dialogue of Textor with 
less freedom. This fragment, which antedates the publication of 
Ingelend's work, will be found reprinted in the Malone Society "Col- 
lections," I, i, 27-30 (1907). 



THE INTERLUDE IN TRANSITION 127 

case subdivided by Ingelend in a manner which con- 
spicuously emphasizes the Enghsh poet's reaUzation 
of the need for comic rehef and dramatic probabiUty. 
The classical allusions of the Latin text are, indeed, all 
retained by Ingelend with the scrupulous care natural 
in one who wished to have himself known "late stu- 
dent in Cambridge," but otherwise "The Disobedient 
Child " shows itself vividly English in tone, and original 
in every essential of treatment. Thus, this play illus-* 
trates, like the other members of its class, the two out- 
standing features of the mid-sixteenth-century inter- 
lude: the avidity, upon the one hand, with which it 
culled new plot-material, even in the most unpromising 
foreign fields; and, on the other hand, the great con- 
stant "Zugkraft" which caused it, automatically, as it 
were, to vitalize and domesticate all its borrowings. 

The last example of the transitional interlude based 
on the Prodigal Son motif of the continental Latinists is 
George Gascoigne's "Glass of Government," first pub- 
lished in 1577. This play, in which I am unable to dis- 
cern the merits pointed out by a recent biographer of 
Gascoigne,^ seems to be much the poorest of all the 
extant essays in its kind; and it offers rather unneces- 
sary proof of the inherent impossibility that English 
drama should derive any permanent guidance from a 
model so alien and inflexible as the academic Latin 
comedy of the German moralists. In the case of "Nice 
Wanton" and "The Disobedient Child" we see how 
English writers have struck out, in the heat of dis- 
covery of a new genre, dramas which owe such excel- 
lence as they possess to their native rather than im- 
ported characteristics. Gascoigne, however, who had 
» See F. E. Schelling, Publ. Univ. Penn., ii, 4 (1895), 47. 



l-^S THE TUDOR DRAMA 

already qualified himself for a certain curious celebrity 
as the translator of a Latin-Italian comedy and a Greek 
Italian tragedy,* has attempted in "The Glass of Gov- 
ernment" a mere pedestrian imitation of the then fa- 
miliarly known work of the school of Macropedius. 

Couched in imdrstinguished and tedious prose, this 
play follows the Terentian comic model in all matters of 
form, — in its neat division of act and scene, its restric- 
tion of the locality presented to Antwerp, and its sup- 
planting of stage action by the reports of messengers, 
as well as in its use of rudely portrayed stock types: 
the pedant, the parasite, the harlot, the knavish 
servant (Ambidexter), and dissolute sons, and in its 
chorus of grave bm-ghers. In the spirit of the piece Gas- 
coigne imitates equally unimaginatively the chill Pro- 
testant morality of the Dutch Terentians. Nowhere 
does the play reflect any truth of English character or 
any situation from contemporary English life. The 
figures are all dull and unreal, and the plot, though 
outwardly regular in its development, is in etfect per- 
fectly futile because it presents on the stage nothing of 
real interest or importance, but leaves all the signifi- 
cant events in the career of the two pairs of good and 
bad children to be reported at secondhand. Apart from 
all deficiencies of character drawing and theatrical 
manipulation, patent absurdity is involved in the 
structure of the play in that it makes the entire life 
story of the four young men — Phylautus, Phylo- 
musus, Phylosarchus. and Phylotimus — from their 
rudimentary education, through university experience 
and worldly business, to final reward or pimishment 
synchronize with happenings in the city of Antwerp 
> Sw pp. i«4, 106. 



THE INTERLUDE IN TRANSITION 129 

which can only occupy a very few days or weeks. 
**The Ghiss of Government" closes an epoch. With 
"The Conflict of Conscience" it shares the distinc- 
tion of being the last purely didactic moral play, and it 
is interesting that its publication fell upon the very 
year which brought to a head the opposition between 
Puritan morality and dramatic literature.^ Essentially 
a reactionary and unreasoned production, it gives one 
leave to doubt whether any higher power than lucky 
accident had inspired Gascoigne, when, nine years 
before, he inaugurated a new era in English comedy by 
his translation of "The Supposes." 

The first decade of Elizabeth's reign was a period of 
considerable theatrical activity, which began several 
innovations all - important for the great drama of 
twenty years later. One of the most eventful of these 
was the reaching out of the interlude into the domain 
of history. Conscious of the inadequacy of allegorical 
puppets to satisfy the growing demand for the presen- 
tation of real life, and yet unable to break away en- 
tirely from the traditionary models, the more ambitious 
writers of the period ventured upon a bold mingling of 
extremes. To offset the vagueness of symbolic figures, 
they mixed with them at random actual celebrities 
from the familiar fields of English history. Biblical 
story, or classic myth. The inevitable absurdity of this 
melange was naturally fatal to the experimental works 
which inaugurated it, but the ultimate consequences 
were far-reaching and most salutary. In the course of 
a quarter century the alien elements had fused into a 
complex drama which joined to the morality's univer- 
sality of appeal the concrete human application of his- 
' Cf. p. 427 f. 



130 'KBE TUDOR DRAMA 

toric fact, and the native English theatre rested upon 
a firm and permanent basis. 

The first play to illustrate this important evolu- 
tionary tendency is probably Bale's "King John," 
which was perhaps written as early as the reign of 
Henry VIII, though certainly revised after the acces- 
sion of Elizabeth. "King John" remained in manu- 
script till the nineteenth century, and it is uncertain 
whether it was ever acted in London.^ It can,.there- 
fore, hardly have exerted much direct influence upon 
English dramatic development. Yet as an indication 
of general tendencies it is of the utmost interest, since 
it shows the interlude enriched by both of the two new 
elements which we have been discussing; the imitation 
of continental Latin drama and the insertion of well- 
known historic figures. The years of Bale's first exile 
(1540-1547) had been spent very largely in Lutheran 
Germany, where he found congenial company and 
established relations which were of some importance 
for his later dramatic writings. More than to any one 
else Bale owes to the Protestant dramatist, Thomas 
Kirchmayer, author of a Latin satire on the papal 
institution called "Pammachius" (1538), which Bale 
translated into English, and which was performed at 
Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1545. ^ 

From "Pammachius" Bale probably derived the 
first suggestion for "King John," as well as the general 
satiric method of the play, which is considerably dif- 

* Sec, however, the interesting doeument printed by Collier 
{Eng. Dram. Poetry, ed. 1879, i, 123-125), which shows that "an en- 
terlude concernyng King John" was performed "at my Lorde of 
Canterbury's," Jan. 2, 1539. 

' See C. H. Herford, Literary Relations,l29 f. 



THE INTERLUDE IN TRANSITION 131 

ferent from that of his earHcr works; and the idea of 
presenting the Pope himself on the stage as the leader 
of the powers of evil. Because of the introduction, on 
the other hand, of such actual figures as King John, 
Cardinal Pandulphus, Stephen Langton, and Raymond 
of Toulouse, the drama has been sometimes noted as 
the earliest English history play; but such a classifica- 
tion is rather superficial. The real affiliation of "King 
John" is rather with controversial moralities of the 
type of "Magnificence" and ".Respublica " than with 
the later "history." It was written with the author's 
eye continually upon existing conditions in religion 
and politics, and King John himself is as essentially 
unhistoric, as far from representing an actual person- 
age of a bygone age, as is the "Widow England" from 
really typifying the nation in the thirteenth century. 
Langton, Pandulphus, and Raymundus are mere 
aliases temporarily assumed by the vices of Sedition, 
Private Wealth, and Dissimulation. Thus the first 
introduction of the concrete into the province of alle- 
gory makes clear the strength of the hold which the 
morality convention still retained upon dramatic proce- 
dure. Capable not only of maintaining itself, but even 
of generalizing the new specific importations, the sym- 
bolic tradition could not be totally supplanted, but was 
very gradually amalgamated with the newer influences. 
The plays of "Godly Queen Hester" and "King 
Darius" show English playwrights searching again in 
Holy Scripture, like their fourteenth-century predeces- 
sors, for dramatic subjects, but it is romantic interest 
now and not moral truth which they seek. "Queen 
Hester," which the title-page of the only extant edition 
reports to have been "newly made and imprinted this 



132 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

pr(\scnt yore, 1561," relates \u fairly regular manner the 
story i>f the advancement of llamaii by Ahasnerus. the 
marriau'o of Esther to the King, the insolenee of llaman 
and his plot against the Jews, witli their reseue by 
Esther and the overthrow of Ilaman. Pride, Adula- 
tion, and AmbitioTi are introdneed to expose the fanlts 
of llaman, and the viee, Ilardydardy, seenres the post 
of fool in the honsehold of the same nnsernpnlons 
favorite. It is impossible to resist the sus})ieion of per- 
sonal satire in the delineation of llaman. The analogy 
between his eharaeter and Wolsey's in his rapid ad- 
vancement, his arrogance, and his impoverishment of 
the realm — so that, as Ambition remarks, "if war 
should chance, either with Scotland or France, this gear 
would not go right" — has impelled several critics to 
regaril the play as a companion piece to "Magnifi- 
cence." proihiced by a member of Skelton's party be- 
fore the Cardinal's death in 1530.^ Against this view 
weighs — thongh perhaps with no absolntely decisive 
force — the repeated assertion of the title-page that 
the work was "A newe enterlude — newly matle" in 
1501, and the certainty that it finds a more natural 
place among the interhules of the period 155t>-15t>0 
than among those of Henry VIII's early reign. 

"King Oarins" is spivitically described on the title- 
page as "A Pretie new Knterhule both pithie and 
pleasant — taken out of the third and forth Chapter of 
tlie third booke of Esdras." The date of the extant edi- 
tion is 1505. The title and the statement of source are 
both rather deceptive, for only four hundred and fifty 
lines out of sixteen lunuh-ed have any connect ii^n witli 
Darius or his court. The rest of the play is detinitely 
> Sec p. Si ff. 



THE INTERLUDE IN TRANSITION 133 

localized in England and forms a perfectly independ- 
ent moral interlude of anti-papal tendency. The two 
sets of scenes and the characters belonging to each are 
entirely distinct. There could not be less trace of as- 
similation, rndeed, had the poet written the Darius 
scenes separately, and inserted them arbitrarily as a 
further ornament between the natural divisions of 
his otherwise complete morality. There is no evidence 
that this was not the case. In "Jacob and Esau," 
an admirable Scriptural drama of the same period 
(licensed 1557-155H), containing no features peculiar 
to the interlude, and in A. Golding's frank translation 
of "A Tragedie of Abrahams Sacrifice. Written in 
French by Theodore Beza" (composed 1575), one finds 
further illustration of the way in which native and 
foreign dramatic tendencies were at this time running 
separate courses, sometimes strictly parallel and dis- 
tinct, sometimes exerting mutual influence, but not 
yet mingled in a single current. 

There is good evidence that playwrights, even as 
early as the close of the first (quarter of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, were beginning to look for plot material, not 
only in the more orthodox repositories of historical and 
Biblical narrative, but even sometimes in the literature 
of romance. The bare suggestion of a romantic strain 
in the interlude of "Saint John the Evangelist" has 
been already pointed out."^ The first clear instance of 
the same tendency is found in the play generally known 
as "Calisto and Melibea," of which the source is the 
earlier portion of the Spanish novel-drama, "Celes- 
tina." It would appear that the author, or the pub- 
lisher, John Rastell, was in this case uneasily conscious 
1 See p. 105. 



134 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

of the unconventionally frivolous nature of the theme, 
for on the title-page he entirely suppresses the names 
of the notorious lovers, and introduces the work to the 
reader in the following non-committal and enigmatic 
language: "A new comedy e in englysh in maner of an 
enterlude ryght elygant & full of craft of rethoryk, 
wherein is shewd & dyscrybyd as well the bewte & good 
propertes of women as theyr vycys &euyll c5dici5s with 
a morall coclusion & exhortacyon to vertew." Agreeably 
with the promise thus implied, the conclusion of the play 
is utterly distorted in the interest of moral effect. The 
absence, however, among the dramatis personce of any 
allegorical figure and the entire absorption of atten- 
tion in the progress of a secular love intrigue distinguish 
the i^lay clearly from other interludes of the time, and 
give it a claim to rank with the structurally far better 
comedies of Heywood among the richest of all the 
plays of Henry VIII's reign in promise for the future 
drama. 

The output of the English press during the first half- 
century of its existence is known in considerable degree 
from mere fragmentary odds and ends. No dramatic 
loss thus involved, however, is perhaps more to be de- 
plored than that of the interlude dealing with the love of 
Publius Cornelius and the Lady Lucrece, of which only 
two leaves are now extant, though there seems reason 
to hope that the rest of the work is not irrecoverably 
lost.^ The surviving fragment has been ascribed to the 
press of John Rastell, and may thus have been asso- 
ciated in origin as well as in the nature of its theme 
with "Calisto and Melibea." 

^ The extant portion is reprinted in Malone Society " Collections, " 
I, ii (1908), 137-142. 



THE INTERLUDE IN TRANSITION 135 

A much more advanced work than any of the preced- 
ing is John Philhp's "Comedy of Meek and Patient 
Grissell,"in which the trials of Boccaccio's heroine are 
presented, not altogether unsympathetically, by means 
of the crude allegorical devices of the moralities. This 
play can be most satisfactorily studied in connection 
with the contemporary interludes founded on classic 
story. 

The earliest example of the introduction of classical 
figures into the English interlude can be very precisely 
dated. It occurs in the farce of "Thersites," which the 
fact of partial translation from a Latin dialogue of 
Ravisius Textor would naturally set later than the 
publication of the earliest edition of Textor's poem in 
1530, while allusions in the Epilogue to the English 
play to the birth of Edward VI and the illness of 
Queen Jane Seymour point clearly to the middle of 
October (Oct. 12-24), 1537. "Thersites" is an utterly 
absurd performance in the roughest of doggerel rime, 
but its author is proved a fair scholar by his occasional 
variations and expansions of Textor's mythological 
references, while his large original infusions of local 
raillery and buffoonery witness a vigorous natural gift 
in the less polished forms of farcical merriment. As in 
the parallel case of "The Disobedient Child," the two 
hundred and fifty lines of Textor's dialogue, written 
this time in hexameter verse, serve only as a point of 
departure for the English writer, who quadruples the 
poem's length; adds — in bad taste, it must be con- 
fessed — the whole concluding episode of Telemachus; 
and uses the elements of Textor's drama (Thersites's 
colloquies with Vulcan and his mother, his combats 
with the "testudo" and Miles) as occasions for infinite 



136 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

jest of local and contemporary application. Thersites 
drops entirely his Homeric character, ogles his audience 
between scenes like the native vice in "Like Will to 
Like," and pours out indecorous nothings to the confu- 
sion of individual spectators. 

Quite as English in tone as "The Disobedient Child," 
this play shows none of Ingelend's originality in plot 
construction or character delineation, but remains in 
respect of these essentials on the same plane of uncouth 
naivete with Textor's dialogue, and thus affiliates 
itself with a much less advanced species of interlude 
than that with which this chapter has been mainly 
concerned. Everything seems to indicate that "Ther- 
sites" was designed for presentation before a vulgar 
audience. Instead of the indoor stage on which scene 
follows scene in orderly progression, we have here to do 
with the old mediaeval arrangement of "platea" and 
individual "sedes." The second stage direction tells 
us: "Mulciber must have a shop made in the place 
[i. e., 'platea'], and Thersites cometh before it, saying 
aloud." This representation of a shop stood apparently 
on one side of the stage through the entire play, and 
Mulciber four times comes out at Thersites's call and 
reenters to execute his commissions. Another fixed seat 
was occupied by Thersites's mother. The stage direc- 
tion announces: "Then the mother goeth in the place 
which is prepared for her," and it is in this place, some- 
where on the edge of the stage and in view of the spec- 
tators, that Thersites seeks refuge from Miles: "Ther- 
sites must run away, and hide him behind his mother's 
back." 

The stage on which "Thersites " was presented thus 
bears more analogy to that used for "The Castle of 



THE INTERLUDE IN TRANSITION 137 

Perseverance " than to the curtained platform ordina- 
rily employed for courtly interludes; and other indica- 
tions likewise suggest popular performance. The en- 
tire lack of moral import, greater than in even the most 
unabashed of Heywood's interludes, is combined with 
several clear concessions to bourgeois taste. The 
mythological allusions of the Latin original, far from 
distasteful to any educated renaissance audience, are 
in part supplanted by references to the vernacular lit- 
erature of the humbler classes. Thus, Textor's lines, — ■ 

"Si montes quibus Enceladus fraterquc Ryphaeus 
Tentavere Jovem superis detrudere regnis, 
Impeterent, caderetque in te scapulosus Olympus, 
Pondere sub nullo rigida haec lorica fatiscat," — 

are familiarized as follows : — 

"If Malvern Hills should on thy shoulders light. 
They shall not hurt them, nor suppress thy might. 
If Bevis of Hampton, Colburn, and Guy, 
Will thee assay, set not by them a fly! 
To be brief, this habergin shall thee save." 

And in the subsequent pages the names of Textor's 
classical celebrities are often fairly pushed out of the 
lines to make room for the mention of heroes of another 
cult, beloved by the common people, but regarded by 
the polished classes of the day with unaffected scorn, — 
heroes like "King Arthur and the knights of the Round 
Table," " Gawain the courteous and Kay the crabbed," 
Sir Iscnbras, Robin Hood, Little John, and Friar Tuck. 
The rollicking absurdity of the nonsense verse near the 
end of the play, ringing the changes on the names 
of places situated for the most part about the upper 
Thames valley, would hardly have been tolerated by 



138 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

an educated London audience.^ So, the general char- 
acter of the final address to the spectators, bidding 
them be obedient to their "rulers and parents," and 
possibly a note of uncertainty concerning the progress 
of affairs at court, suggest that this play, the first to 
embody the connection with ancient literature which 
was to become peculiarly a feature of fashionable 
drama, was written for a rather unfashionable public 
and "performed probably by schoolboys. 

"Thersites" seems to have been a random manifes- 
tation, occasioned by the example of Textor and devoid 
of bearing upon contemporary dramatic practice. A 
quarter of a century elapsed before the transitional 
interlude began seriously to import themes and figures 
from classic story; and then the plays of this type — 
Pikering's "Horestes," Preston's "Cambises," Ed- 
wards's "Damon and Pithias," and R. B.'s "Appius 
and Virginia " — all produced during the first ten or 
fifteen years of Elizabeth's reign, coincided entirely 
in their method, structure, and their circle of appeal 
with the Biblical interludes of the same date. It hap- 
pened that the appearance in the four interludes just 
named of dramatis personce from classical history or 
fiction occurred simultaneously with the attempt to 
introduce pure classical models in tragedy and comedy; 
and superficially it seems hard to distinguish between 
interludes which treat Greek or Latin subjects and 
classical imitations which retain certain features of 

^ The places mentioned, apart from Antwerp and Tunis, are: 
Cumnor, Tewkesbury, Sudeley, Comerton (? Combe-Martin), 
Bromwicham (? Birmingham), Buckingham, Baldockbury, Tavis- 
tock, Oxford, Hinksey, Thrutton, Chertsey, Cotswold, Malvern, 
and London. 



THE INTERLUDE IN TRANSITION 139 

the interlude. The plays of the former type will there- 
fore deserve slight further notice when we come in the 
next chapters to trace the spread of classical influence. 
Yet, intrinsically and historically, the differences which 
separate works like "Cambises" from the contem- 
porary "Gorboduc" are of the greatest importance. 
In comparison with the out-and-out provincialism of 
"Thersites," plays of the "Cambises" type appear 
rather aristocratic in tone, and they were probably all 
intended in the first instance for performance on the 
private stage normal in interlude presentation. But 
with the extension among the educated public of the 
rigid demand for that precise classic regularity of form 
which "Gorboduc" illustrates, plays of mixed char- 
acter like "Cambises" were forced more and more to 
make their appeal to popular and unlettered audi- 
ences; and in that atmosphere they tended to accentu- 
ate their comic and spectacular features. Thus it re- 
sulted that the interlude, which had begun its active 
existence as the dramatic medium of the most refined 
and progressive opinion, finally died out in these 
changed and degraded survivals as a cheap and shoddy 
vulgar substitute for the regular Latin tragedy to 
which the polite world had for the time turned its 
interest. 

John Pikering's "Newe Enterlude of Vice, Conteyn- 
inge the History of Horestes " (1567) stands probably 
at the highest point attained by the transitional inter- 
lude in the development of dramatic unity and tragic 
purpose. In this play, to be sure, as in " King Darius," 
there is a juxtaposition of serious classic story and na- 
tive comedy, but here it is the former constituent, the 
representation of Orestes's vengeance upon his mother, 



140 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

that takes up the greater part of the drama. The 
humorous matter is subordinate. Furthermore, al- 
though the two strains are not completely fused, they 
are not distinct as in "King Darius." The vice, who 
goes by many names, is one of the principal agents in 
the conduct of the tragic plot. As Courage, he exhorts 
Orestes to undertake the war, and as Revenge, his 
rightful title, he stands at the avenger's elbow, and 
later points the moral of the piece. In this play and in 
its less regular companions, "Cambises" and "Ap- 
pius and Virginia," the interlude stands as close to 
tragedy as even indirect foreign stimulus could prob- 
ably ever bring it. The next twenty years saw in Eng- 
land the complete dissolution of the hereditary dra- 
matic form and the reincarnation of the dramatic 
spirit. 

But as the reader turns from the conscientious study 
of all the diverse manifestations of the early native 
mystery, morality, and interlude to the more familiar 
products of developed Elizabethan comedy or tragedy, 
he must be impressed by the multiplicity of the con- 
necting threads of influence. The restricted dramatic 
current, which we can follow for over two centuries in 
its divagations through a rather arid tract of literature, 
passed out into the brof^d expanse of the Elizabethan 
world drama by more mouths than can easily be 
counted. 

The blending of morality convention with the re- 
naissance cult of pagan mythology shows itself in " The 
Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune" (1589) and in 
the very dull and absurd play of a well-known actor, 
"The Cobbler's Prophecy," by Robert Wilson (1594). 
"The Three Ladies of London" (1584) and "Three 




A TUDOK INTKRLUDE (?) IN rUOCHKSS : LOOKING TOWAUU 

THE aui)ip;nce 

From the title-page to R. W.'s " Three Lords and Tliree Ladies of London," 1500 



THE INTERLUDE IN TRANSITION 141 

Lords and Three Ladies of London" (1590), written 
.probably by the same Robert Wilson and bearing his 
initials on their title-pages, show the interlude in the 
last phase of its drift toward city comedy. The two 
plays just mentioned, thongh intrinsically among the 
dullest of the interludes, possess a claim to notice by 
reason of the obvious seriousness of their literary pre- 
tensions. Like such earlier works as "The Tide Tar- 
rieth No Man" and "All for Money," they present a 
sincere criticism of existing conditions by means of 
literal dozens of figures and almost interminable lines 
of careful verse. The sensitiveness to changes of liter- 
ary fashion, indicated in the transition from the long 
rambling couplets of "The Three Ladies" to the blank 
verse of "The Three Lords and Three Ladies," has 
been often noted. What is perhaps less frequently felt 
is the intimacy with which these aj)parently lifeless 
pieces represent the prevailing social interests of their 
day. In their scourging of the current iniquities of 
usury and simony, and in the timely ridicule of Spanish 
arrogance presented in the later play, they broach sev- 
eral of the most vital issues in the life of the age.^ 

A much more human and readable play, even more 
complex in its affiliations, is the "Merry Knack to 
Know a Knave" (1594). Here the moral abstraction 
Honesty plays a prominent role at the court of the 
Saxon King Edgar, circumventing and overthrowing 
each of the Bailiff of Hexham's rascally sons: Courtier, 
Priest, Coneycatchcr, and Farmer. This medley of 
interlude, mythical history, and comedy of manners is 
further confused by the interpolation of a charming 

* Tom Beggar ia the earlier play may be the original of Auto- 
lycus. 



142 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

romantic sub-plot dealing with the rivalry of King 
Edgar and his confidant Ethanwold for the hand of the 
Lady Alfrida. 

Even when the English drama was well entered upon 
its ultimate catholic career in the work of Shakespeare 
and his greatest contemporaries, concrete evidences of 
the force of the older fashion still persisted. Charac- 
teristic devices of the morality type repeat themselves 
in Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus," in Greene's "Friar 
Bacon and Friar Bungay; " in the general structure of 
Nash's only independent play, "Summer's Last Will 
and Testament," and the general subject of Peele's 
"David and Bethsabe" and Lodge and Greene's 
"Looking Glass for London;" most notably of all in the 
continued vivid allusions to Vice and Iniquity in the 
works of Shakespeare. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I. Decadent Sxjrvivals of the Old Type 

John the Evangelist. Printed, J. Waley, n. d. Facsimile, J. S. 
Farmer, 1907. Reprinted, Malone Society, 1907 ; J. S. Farmer, 
" Lost " Tudor Plays, 1907. Discussion : H. Bradley, Mod. Lang. 
Review, July, 1907 ; W. H. Williams, " Irisdision in the Inter- 
lude of Johan the Euangelyst," Mod. Lang. Review, July, 1908. 

Wealth and Health (S. R., 1557). Ed. n. d. Facsimile, J. S. 
Farmer, 1907. Reprinted, Malone Society, 1907 ; J. S. Farmer, 
" Lost " Tudor Plays, 1907 ; F. Holthausen, Kiel, 1908. 

FuLWELL, Ulpian : Like Will to Like. Two early editions : — 
(rt) 1568. Printed by John Allde. 

(b) 1587. Pr. Edw. Allde. Facsimile, J. S. Farmer, 1909. Re- 
printed, Hazlitt, Dodsley, iii. 

Impatient Poverty. Printed, John King, 1560. Facsimile, J. S. 
Farmer, 1907. Reprinted, J. S. Farmer, " Lost " Tudor Plays, 
1907. 



THE INTERLUDE IN TRANSITION 143 

Albion Knight. Fragment in Chatsworth library. Reprinted, 

Shakespeare Society Papers, i, 1844 ; J. S. Farmer, Malone 

Society " Collections," I, iii. 
Trial of Treasure. Printed, Th. Purfoote, 1567. Facsimile, 

J. S. Farmer, 1908. Reprinted, J. O. Halliwell, Percy Society, 

28, 1850 ; Hazlitt, Dodsley, iii, 1874. 
Wager, Lewis : Life and Repentance of Mary Magdalene. 

John Charlewood, 1566, 1567. Facsimile of ed. 1507, J. S. 

Farmer, 1908. Reprinted, F. I. Carpenter, 1902. New ed. 

1904. Discussion: A. Brandl, Sh. Jb. 39, 316-319 ; R. Imel- 

mann, Archiv, iii, 209-211. 
Wapull, G. : The Tide Tarrieth No Man, 1576. Reprinted, 

Collier, Illustrations of Pop. Lit., 1864, ii, 4 ; Ernst Riihl, Sh. 

/ft. 43 (1907). 
LuPTON, T. : All for Money, 1578. Pr. Roger Warde & 

Richard Mundee. Facsimile, J. S. Farmer, 1910. Reprinted, 

J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps, Literature of the 16 and 17 Centuries 

illustrated, 1851 ; Ernst Vogel, Sh. Jb. 40, 1904. 
Wager, W. : The Longer Thou Livest the More Fool 

Thou Art. Ed. n. d. Reprinted, A. Brandl, Sh. Jb. 36, 1900. 
Wager, W. : The Cruell Debtor. (A fragment consisting of 

a single leaf is in the British Museum.) 
WooDES, N. : The Conflict of Conscience, 1581. Reprinted, 

J. P. Collier, Roxburghe Club, 1851 (" Five Old Plays ") ; 

Hazlitt, Dodsley, vi. 
The Contention Bet-ween Liberality and Prodigality. 

1602. Reprinted, Hazlitt, Dodsley, viii. 

II. Interludes affected by Foreign Models 

A. WORKS affected BY CONTEMPORARY LATIN DRAMA OF THE 
CONTINENT 

Nice "Wanton. Two early editions : — 

(a) Printed by John King, 1560. Facsimile, J. S. Farmer, 

1909. 

(b) Printed by John AUde, n. d. Facsimile, J. S. Farmer, 

1908. 
Reprinted: Hazlitt, Dodsley, ii, 1874 ; Manly, Specimens, i, 
1897 ; J. S. Farmer, Dramatic Writings of R. Wever and Th. 
Ingelend (sic !), 1905. 



144 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Ingelend, Thomas : The Disobedient Child. Printed, Th. 
Colwell. n. d. Facsimile, J. S. Farmer, 1908. Reprinted, J. O. 
Halliwell, Percy Society, 23, 1848 ; Hazlitt, Dodsley, ii, 1874 ; 
J. S. Farmer, Dram. Writings of R. Wever and Th. Ingelend, 
1905. Discussion: F. Holthausen.^ngrZ. S^wrf., 31 (1902),90ff. 

Prodigal Son. Fragment. Reprinted, Malone Sac. " Collec- 
tions," I, i, 27-30 ; ii, 106, 107. 

Gascoigne, G. : The Glass of Government, 1575. Reprinted, 
W. C. Hazlitt, Gascoigne's Poems, Roxburghe Library, 1870, 
ii ; Works of Gascoigne, ed. J. W. Cunliffe, vol. ii (in press). 
Discussion: E. Arber, " Chronicle of the Life, Works, and 
Times of Gascoigne," 1868 ; C. H. Herford, " Gascoigne's 
Glasse of Government," Engl. Stud., ix, 1886, 201-209 ; F. E. 
Schelling, " The Life & Writings of George Gascoigne," 1894. 

Bale, John : John, King of England. Cf . Bibliography to 
chapter iii. 

B. WORKS BASED ON SCRIPTrHAL STORT 

Godly Queen Hester. Printed, Wm. Pickering and Th. Racket, 
1561. Reprinted, J. P. CoWier, Illustrations of Early Eng. Pop. 
Lit., pt. 7, 1863 (50 copies) ; A. B. Grosart, Alisc. of Fuller 
Worthies Library, vol. iv, 1873 (106 copies) ; W. W. Greg, 
Materialien, v, 1904 ; J. S. Farmer, Six Anonymous Plays (2d 
Series), 1906. 

Bling Darius. Two early editions : — 

(a) 1565. Printed, Th. Colwell. Facsimile, J. S.YaTmeT, 1909. 

(b) 1577. " Hugh Jackson. " J. S. " 1907. 
Reprinted, J. O. Halliwell-Pbillipps, 1860 ; A. Brandl, Quellen^ 
1898. 

Jacob and Esau, 1568. Printed, Henry Bynneman, B. M. Fac- 
simile, Farmer, 1908. Reprinted, Hazlitt, Dodsley, ii, 1874 ; J. S. 
Farmer, Six Anonymous Plays (2d Series), 1906. Discussion: 
Mrs. C. C. Stopes, Athenceum, Apr. 28, 1900, pp. 538-540. 

GoLDiNG, A. : Abraham's Sacrifice. "Written in French by 
Theodore Beza, and translated into English by A. G. Finished 
at Powles Belchamp in Essex, the xj. of August, 1575." Re- 
printed, M. W. Wallace, 1907. 

C. WORKS BASED ON CLASSIC STORT 

Thersites. Ed. n. d., printed by John Tysdale. Facsimile, H. S. 
Ashbee, 1876. Reprinted, Haslewood, Two Interludes, Rox- 



THE INTERLUDE IN TRANSITION 145 

burghe Club, 1820 ; F. J. Child, Four Old Plays, 1848 ; Haz- 

litt, Dodsley, i, 1874. Discussion : W. Creizenach, Lit. Central- 

blatt, 1899, 205 ; F. Holthausen, Engl. Stud., 31 (1902), 77. 
PiKERixG, John : Interlude of Vice containing the History 

of Horestes, 1567. Facsimile, J. S. Farmer, 1910. Reprinted, 

A. Brandl, Quellen, 1898. 
B(o\VER8 ?), R. : Appius and Virginia, 1575. Facsimile, J. S. 

Farmer, 1908. Reprinted, Hazlitt, Dodsley, iv. 
Preston, Thomas : Cambises, King of Persia. Two early 

editions : — 

(a) Printed by John AUde, n. d. (licensed 1569). 

(b) " " Edward Allde, n. d. Facsimile, J. S. Farmer, 
1910. 

Reprinted, Hawkins, 1773, vol. i ; Hazlitt, Dodsley, iv, Manly, 
Specimens, i, 1897. Discussion : M. P. Tilley ; Sh. &. his ridi- 
cule of Cambises, Mod. Lang. Notes, 24 (1909), 244r-247. 
Edwards, Richard : Damon and Pithias. Two early editions : 
1571, 1582. Facsimile of 1571, ed. J. S. Farmer, 1908. 
Reprinted, Dodsley, Ancient British Drama, 1810. Discussion : 
Durand, W. Y., Jrl. Germ. Phil., iv, 348-355 ; Mod. Lang. 
Notes, 23, 131. 

D. INTERLUDES BASED ON ROMANTIC 8TOHT 

Phillip, John : Comedy of Patient and Meek Grissell. 

Printed by Th. Colwell, n. d. Reprinted, Malone Society, 

1909. 
Calisto and Melibea. Printed by John Rastell, n. d. Facsimile, 

J. S. Farmer, 1909. Reprinted, Hazlitt, Dodsley, i, 1874 ; 

Malone Society^ 19. Discussion : A. S. W. Rosenbach, " The 

Influence of the 'Celestina' in the Early English Drama." 

Sh. Jh. 39 (1903), 43 ff. 

E. COMEDIES RETAINING NOTEWORTHY FEATURES OP THE 
INTERLUDE FORM 

Wilson, Robert : The Cobbler's Prophecy, 1594. Reprinted, 

W. Dibelius, Sh. Jb. 33, 1897. The Pedler's Prophecy, 

1595. 
W(iL80N ?) R. : Three Ladies of London, 1584. Reprinted, 

J. P. Collier, Five Old Plays, 1851 ; Hazlitt, Dodsley, vi. 

Three Lords and Three Ladies of Loudon, 1590. Re- 



U6 THE TUDOR DlUx\L\ 

printed, J. P. Collier, Five Old Plays, Roxburghe Club, 1851 ; 
Hazlitt, Dodaleif, vi. Discussion : II. Fernow, " The Three 
Lords aud Three Ladies of London," Hamburg, 1885. 
A Merry Knack to Klnow^ a Knave, 1594. Keprinted, J. P. 
Collier, Fire Old Plaijs, lloxburgho Club, 1851 ; llazlitt, 
l\Hi.<!t'i/, vi. 
Nash, Thomas : Summer's Last Will and Testament, 1600. 
Ivoprinted, IXnisley, ed. Collier and Hazlitt; "Wo^ks of 
Nash," ed. A. B. Crosart, vol. vi, 1885 ; ed. R. B. McKerrow, 
vol. iii, liH)5. 
Grim, the Collier of Croyden. " or The Deril and his Dame ; 
with the Devil and St. Diinstan : a Comedy, by L T," 1662. 
(Ascribed to William Haughtou.) Reprinted, Dodsley, edd. 
Reed, Collier, llazlitt. 



CHAPTER V 

CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN COMEDY 

When the germs of an English national drama first 
dcveloi)ed into conscious life amid the moribund sur- 
vivals of the conventional mystery and morality, the 
new element was still quite simple. The range of this 
incipient comedy was, indeed, little broader than that 
of the performances of the itinerant mimi and jocula- 
tores against whom the fulminations of the Church had 
been directed in centuries past.' The authors of the 
secular interpolations from which the true English 
drama may be said to spring addressed themselves, like 
the wandering joculatores or jongleurs, to vulgar audi- 
ences, and they treated vulgar themes. The second 
Shepherds' Play in the Towneley cycle, containing the 
story of Mak; the different versions of the quarrel be- 
tween Noah and his wife; the crude horse-play of the 
less serious moralities, wherein the vice belabors his 
victims, or is himself beaten, — these episodes repre- 
sent the most vital work which the English drama at 
the commencement of the Renaissance had to offer. 
Comedy at this period can scarcely be said to possess 
intellectual interest. Its appeal was almost wholly 
physical. The writers depended for the amusement of 
their audiences upon the farcical presentation of ruf- 
fianism and the contortions of bodily pain. 

The changes which we have traced through the 
transitional middle years of the Tudor period arc of 
* Cf. Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, i, 31 ff ; ii, Appendix N. 



us THE TUDOR DRAMA 

f^rojit iinporlanoe as evidences of a striving after 
hrojuler art, but Ihey prothueil few absolute results. 
The general upheaval in letters and religion altered 
somewhat the tone of eomeily, but was not able to 
elVecl any radical reform in structure. It brought in a 
taste for serious themes and introduced experimentally 
certain foreign models, but the dranui renuiined de- 
pendent still for its bone and sinew upon native ])re- 
renaissance convention. 

At the beginning of Klizabcth's reign, English drama 
as rei)resenteil in comedy by lleywood's interludes and 
in more serious styles by "Rcspublica." " King Darius," 
and "Nice Wanton," had developed as far as it coidd 
naturally proceed without external assistance in the 
way of structural rules and models. There was but one 
source whence such r\des might come; namely, the 
comedy and tragedy of ancient Rome. Greek tlraina 
was at the time much too little known to exert influ- 
ence upon the jiopular or even in any appreciable 
/ measure upon tlie purely academic theatre. 
J! The inlluence of Latin dnuna manifested itself dur- 
/ ing the Elizabethan age umler several conditions. It 
/ might come direct; that is, authors might base their 
work inunediately upon the comedies of Plautus and 
Terence, or the tragedies of Seneca. It was thus that 
the first Latinizing plays in England were produced. 
IVsiile this frank imitation, however, which, till the art 
of literary auudganuition couUl gradually perfect itself, 
was inevitably betrayed by the clash of ancient and 
modern concei>tions. there filtered in a s\d>tler strain 
of intluence by Avay of the classic drama of Italy, where 
Latin plot and precept had already been largely shifted 
into accord with current interests and views of life, and 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN COMEDY 149 

lent themselves, therefore, to considerably easier ah- 
sori)tion. An illustration, probably not very unfair, 
of the tliirerence in efl'ect between classical influence 
when exerted inmiediately and when transmitted at 
second-hand by way of Italy, may be obtained by con- 
trasting^ Shakespeare's "Comedy of Errors," based 
directly on tlie " Mena;chmi " of Plautus and somewhat 
marred by sliffness, witli the j>raceful intrigue comedy 
in the sub-plot of "The Taminj^' of the Shrew," where 
the Latin influence reaches the same poet through the 
medium of Ariosto's "Sup|)osili." 

(The first, fundamental gift of I-atin drama to Eng- 
lish was the example of the division of plays into acts 
and scenes, a practice introduced by the scholarly Bale 
and universalized with the spread of classic imitation.'^ 
Inherently, no doubt, this seems a matter of small 
consequence. Yet no student of Ihe floundering transi- 
tional interludes or the vast amount of e(pially floun- 
dering work which succeeded them can fail to recog- 
nize in it precisely the kind of check indispensable at 
this period to the excessive Elizabethan exuberance 
and uncertainty. (The liabit of building i)lays ujjon a 
rigid five-act pattern which recpiired careful planning 
beforehand, and put a very strong if not invariably 
effectual curb on the chronic impulse to addition and 
divagation, was just the force that turned dramatic 
production into a regular channel where it might pro- 
gress smoothly and consecutively. Lacking this mould 
of form, the drama of the age might easily have proved 
as devoid of restraint and conscious purpose as was, for 
instance, the Elizabethan epic. \ 

Another borrowing from general classic techni(|ue, \ 
likewise introduced by Bale, was of very considerable | 



150 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

consequence, though by no means so rapidly or thor- 
oughly assimilated as the principle of act division. 
Xhis was the recognition of a definite line of cleavage 
between comedy and tragedy. The vagueness with 
which the early Elizabethan dramatists, and many even 
of the later ones, distinguish between the uses and pur- 
poses of the two types is sufficiently well known. It 
was the natural result of the complete absorption of 
tragedy in comedy which characterized the later moral- 
ity; and the less responsible playwrights remained 
satisfied till nearly the end of our period with hetero- 
geneous medleys which they might at will term comi- 
cal tragedies or tragical comedies. All the features in 
this contamination which made for realism and legiti- 
mate variety persisted, and they contributed largely 
to the vitality of the dramatic product. But the study 
of ancient models confirmed in each of the progressive 
writers the realization, prerequisite to serious theatri- 
cal criticism and practice, that essentially comedy is 
one thing and tragedy another. The complete acqui- 
sition of this necessary lesson is probably best wit- 
nessed in the mature procedure of Shakespeare and 
the well-weighed theory of Ben Jonson. But through 
the whole evolution of dramatic method, from the 
groping indecision of Sackville, Edwards, and Udall to 
the conscious mastery of the last great Elizabethans, 
the fundamental conception of the peculiar nature of 
comedy and of tragedy is, like the terms themselves, 
an undisputed heritage from the Latin stage.) 

The introduction of classical models broadened the 
range of the drama as much as it developed dramatic 
art. From Plautus and Terence the English comic 
writers learned to refine their native buffoonery by the 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN COMEDY 151 

cultivation of a more intellectual species of wit, enrich- 
ing the clownage of plebeian life by the addition of 
those laughable characters and incidents which arise 
amid more complex societies. Civic types came more 
and more to replace the old ethical abstractions and 
unlocalized Merry Andrews. Yet the generalizing 
tendency of the interlude remained happily strong 
enough to offset the contracted scope and inherent su- 
perficiality of city comedy, as it flourished in ancient 
Rome and later on the English Restoration stage. So 
well, indeed, did the native and classical elements 
blend that few Elizabethan comedies are notably lack- 
ing, either in broad human application or in realistic 
discrimination of the social types. On the one hand, we 
see the old native clown individualized and intellec- 
tualized in Falstaff ; on the other, we find the soulless 
miles gloriosus humanized in Bobadill. 

f Small as are the merits of the Roman comedians 
in point of invention and originality, their influence 
broadened very notably the narrow scope of the inter- 
lude. From Terence and Plautus Elizabethan drama- 
tists obtained several new types of plot which for them 
possessed a freshness long vanished from the few hack- 
neyed morality themes, and not really acquired by any 
of the experiments of the transitional interlude. Sev- 
eral of the richest veins of Tudor comedy were struck 
in the direct line of classic imitation, and the less patent 
results of the same classicizing tendency were even 
more intrinsically important. The assimilation of 
Latin plot material, by doubling at a leap the struc- 
tural resources of the English dramatist, made possi- 
ble endless permutations and combinations, and stim- 
ulated the development of many new sorts of intrigue 



152 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

whicli would otherwise have remained unsought and 
unsuspected. In tracing, therefore, the influence of 
Latin comedy, the critic can ill afford to limit his 
consideration to such obvious derivatives as "The 
Comcily of Errors" and "The Alchemist." He must 
heed also the more delicate affinities which show the 
example of Plautus- Terence to have been a neces- 
sary preparation even for the romantic plays of "The 
Merchant of Venice" and "A Midsummer Night's 
Dream." 

And though, during the culminating period of dra- 
matic progress, the years of Shakespeare's prime, the 
self-proclaimed classical spirit in .Tonsonian comedy 
stands for restraint and self-containment as against 
the genial but ungoverned diffusiveness of tlie more 
popular school, it must he remembered that both in 
comedy and in tragedy the sterner lessons of classic 
reserve were learned rather from Latin prose and verse 
theorists than from the actual procedure of the Roman 
dramatists. Indeed, it is even true that these drama- 
tists themselves contributed to that exuberant taste 
for vivid, if irrelevant, excitement and ornament which 
"romantic" plays like "As You Like It" and "The 
^Yinter's Tale" rendereti orthodox. and "classic" plaj's 
like "Every Man in his Humour" attempted vainly to 
supplant. The opposition is less justly ascribed to a 
conflict of native artlessness with ancient rule than to 
that of two m\itually sup]ilementary attitudes toward 
art which coexisted in Ronuin times just as they did in 
Elizabethan, and which the connotation of solidarity 
involved in the ordinary use of the word "classic" alto- 
gether obscures. In fact, there is little in the comedies 
of Plautus and Terence or the tragedies of Seneca 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN COMEDY 153 

which can properly be called classic in the Jonsonian 
sense; and we shall see that far the most certain and 
permanent results of the influence of these writers upon 
early English di'ama were, in comedy, the cultivation 
of a species of intrigue much more elaborate and im- 
probable than had before been known, and, in tragedy, 
the birth of melodrama. 

The motif of mistaken identity, which the Latin 
comic dramatists had so over-used, is put to equally hard 
though more varied service on the Elizabethan stage. 
InLyly's *' Mother Bombie," in "The Supposes," "The 
Comedy of Errors," and a dozen other plays of the late 
sixteenth century, it furnishes the backbone of the plot. 
Moreover, it was undoubtedly the force of classic pre- 
cedent rather than the spiritless mumming of the inter- 
ludes which gave rise to the extraordinary Elizabethan 
love of stage disguise and masquerade and continued it 
to the end of the Jacobean period. The intricacy of the 
Latin fable, resting usually upon a tissue of mutual 
deceit and misunderstanding, appears to have had a 
peculiar zest for the English comic writers after the 
long vain efforts of the interlude to escape from the 
threadbare simplicity of the morality plots. It is to be 
regarded as a testimony to the strength of Terentian 
example that, after about 1575, Elizabethan comedy 
tends normally toward excessive convolution of struc- 
ture, in the most marked contrast to the extreme 
tenuity of the traditionary native model. This love of 
a tangled skein of incident and character, even to the 
detriment of dramatic effectiveness, can be followed 
from Lyly's plays through many of Shakespeare's, and 
perhaps reaches its climax in the dizzying maze of de- 
ception, misunderstanding, and cross purpose which 



154 TIjp TUDOR DRAMA 

bewilder the reader of "Wily Beguiled" and Chap- 
man's "All Fools." 

Of the great popularity of the Latin comedies during 
the sixteenth century many evidences survive, though 
it was not till about the middle of the century that 
they began obviously to influence the vernacular Eng- 
lish drama. Terence had, indeed, retained his hold 
upon the reading public throughout the dark ages, and 
had inspired directly a number of imitative dramas 
such as those of the German nun Hroswitha of Ganders- 
heim in the tenth century, and the productions of the 
great German-Latin school in the late fifteenth and six- 
teenth. The work of this last group, largely because of 
its religious and political bias, was considerably more 
immediate in its effect on English drama than was its 
Latin source, and it has been alluded to already in the 
connection in which it properly belongs as a variant 
influence in the development of the later interlude. 

The discovery of the twelve lost comedies of Plautus, 
in 1427, raised the fame of that dramatist to a full 
equality throughout learned Europe with the tradi- 
tional repute of Terence, and the subsequent influence 
of the two poets upon English dramatic evolution is vir- 
tually identical. The plays of each were read con- 
stantly during the entire sixteenth century in schools 
and colleges; and in the Latin original they were not 
infrequently acted, sometimes as academic exercises 
very much in the manner still continued in the annual 
performances at Westminster School, at other times 
with, less definitely educational intent. 

Several interesting allusions prove the early vogue of 
Plautus with the courtly English public before which 
the interludes were ordinarily presented, — the public. 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN COMEDY 155 

that is, whose taste was during the early Tudor period 
the determining factor in the evolution of dramatic 
types. Thus Holinshed's Chronicle bears witness to this 
juxtaposition of a play of Plautus, presumably acted 
in the original, with one of the disguisings so popular in 
connection with interludes. The occasion was a state 
entertainment of Henry VIII, in the great hall at 
Greenwich, May 7, 1520: "Into this chamber came the 
king, and the queene, with the hostages, and there was 
a goodlie comedie of Plautus plaied; and that doone, 
there entered into the chamber eight ladies in blacke 
veluet bordered about with gold ... & tired like the 
Aegyptians verie richlie." (Holinshed, ed. 1808, iii, 
635, 636.) 

A passage in Sir Thomas More's "Utopia" (1516) is 
significant both for its picturing of the circumstances 
of Plautine theatrical presentation, and because of its 
plea for the absolute discrimination of comedy from 
tragedy: "Or els, whyles a commodye of Plautus is 
playinge, and the vyle bondemen skoffynge and try- 
felynge amonge themselfes, yf yowe shoulde sodenlye 
come vpon the stage in a philosophers apparrell, and 
reherse owte of 'Octauia' the place wherin Seneca 
dysputeth with Nero; had it not bene better for yowe 
to haue played the domme persone, then by rehersynge 
that, which serued nother for the tyme nor place, to 
haue made suche a tragycall comedye or gallymal- 
freye ? For by biyngynge in other stuffe that nothynge 
apperteyneth to the presente matter, yowe must nedys 
marre and peruert the play that ys in hande, thoughe 
the stuffe that yowe brynge be muche better." ^ 

' Utopia, Robynson's translation, ed. J. H. Lupton, Oxford, 
1895, 98 f. 



156 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Certainly Plautus receives here very left-handed 
praise; and it must be admitted that the constant 
predilection of Elizabethan drama in favor of " bryng- 
ynge in other stuffe that nothynge apperteyneth to 
the presente matter," together with the traditions of 
More's own participation in such amateur gallimau- 
freys lends point to the suspicion that his allusions 
to Plautus and Seneca are rather due to the desire of 
a neat classical illustration, than the result of observa- 
tion of actual performances. 

No English translation of Plautus is known previous 
to the version of the " Mensechmi " by W. W. in 1595 ; but 
a rendering of the " Andria " of Terence had appeared 
as early as 1497, and it was reprinted at least three 
times before the end of the year 1588 (1510, 1520? 
1588), while a very special personal interest attaches 
to an anthology representing parts of three Terentian 
comedies : " Floures for Latine speakyng . . . selected 
and gathered oute of Terence, and the same translated 
into englyshe . . . compiled by Nicolas Udall." 

The most elementary and not improbably the earli- 
est experiment at introducing upon the native stage 
the much-admired devices of Roman comedy appears 
in the undated "new Enterlued for Chyldren to playe 
named lacke lugeler," which was licensed for pub- 
lication during the year beginning July 22, 1562, but 
was probably extant in manuscript at least a decade 
before. The author of this piece feels himself to be an 
innovator, and he states his objects frankly in a pro- 
logue: — 

" In this manner of making [i. e., in comedy] Plautus did excel 

Wherefore this maker delighteth passingly well 
To follow his arguments, and draw out the same." 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN COMEDY 157 

And he admits with a candor which might well be 
imitated by more homiletic comedians the purely 
ludicrous intention of the play, — 

"not worth an oyster shell. 
Except percase it shall fortune to make you laugh well." 

The story of this farce, which does not extend be- 
yond the length of a single act, is derived avowedly 
from the first scene of the " Amphitruo," but all the de- 
tails of characterization and setting are as typically 
English as anything in the native drama. This early 
excursion into the foreign field illustrates well what is 
throughout the salient and determining feature in the 
progress of Tudor drama, — the essential predominance 
in all plays which truly represent popular interest of 
the domestic, national spirit over the alien influences, 
however numerous and freely introduced. It is only, 
indeed, when the student comes to weigh carefully the 
results of the exotic importations of the mid-century 
that he is likely to comprehend fully the strong and 
permanent hold which the mystery and morality 
species had acquired upon the whole English drama. 
It is an indubitable truth that the Elizabethan stage 
could not have evolved the self-conscious and varied 
art form which it produced without tutelage from Latin 
technique and the assimilation of much new material. 
But it is a truth yet more remarkable that none of the 
forces from abroad, Latin, Italian, French, German, 
or Spanish, was able in the case of any normal Eliz- 
abethan play to supplant or seriously diminish the na- 
tive tone of the character portrayal and atmosphere, 
till the Jacobean decline had well set in. The author of 
"Jack Juggler" has accomplished, apparently uncon- 
sciously and inevitably, that complete translation of 



158 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

his remote theme into terms of contemporary life and 
interest, which for a modern playwright would be the 
hardest of all tasks. The Sosia of Plautus is reincar- 
nated in the page, Jenkin Careaway, as vivid a local 
type as the most sternly national art could produce, 
while the same blind force of natural selection replaces 
Mercury by the mischievous gamin. Jack Juggler. The 
other figures — Master Bongrace and his wife. Dame 
Coy, and the maid, Alison Trip-and-go — can hardly 
be said to owe even the first suggestion to Plautus's 
Amphitryon, Alcmene, or Bromia.^ The real English 
family setting, once outlined, develops itself in this 
sketch, as in "Ralph Roister Doister," "Gammer 
Gurton's Needle," and many another superficially 
classicizing play, — not from any special realistic 
talent or intention on the author's part, but by reason 
of the close intertwining of drama and native life, 
which was the supreme heritage prepared by the mys- 
tery, the morality, and the interlude for the Elizabethan 
theatre. 

"Ralph Roister Doister" is probably the most en- 
lightening illustration extant of the influence of Latin 
precedent upon English comic practice. The date of 
this piece remains in doubt, conjectures ranging over 
the period between 1534 and 1552, though the weight 
of probability seems still to incline toward the conven- 
tional ascription of the work to the years of Udall's 
mastership at Eton school (1534-1541). It is hardly an 
accident that the author of this " first regular English 
comedy " should be a writer whom we know from other 

1 This play has been explained as a travesty of the Roman doc- 
trine of transubstantiation. See F. S. Boas in Cambridge History of 
English Literature, vol. v, 120. 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN COMEDY 159 

evidences to have been most actively interested both 
in the classical and in the native English theatre. In 
1533 he was concerned in a pageant performed at 
Anne Boleyn's coronation; in the following year he 
published his Terentian translations. In 1554, a letter 
of Queen Mary, dated Dec. 3, praises his past diligence 
"in setting foorth of Dialogues and Enterludes before 
us for our regell disports and recreacion," and calls 
upon the Master of the Revels to give him free use of 
royal property for such performances as he "myndeth 
hereafter to shewe." ^ 

"Roister Doister" is probably, after "The Comedy 
of Errors," the most careful imitation of Plautine drama 
produced during the sixteenth century in the English 
vernacular ; but it cannot be regarded, like Shake- 
speare's youthful farce, as in any serious degree an 
adaptation of a particular Roman play. Udall's know- 
ledge of classic theory and practice, immensely broader 
and better-digested, of course, than that of the young 
Shakespeare, is everywhere corrected by his equally 
intimate acquaintance with native types and theatrical 
requirements. The professional supervisor of inter- 
ludes to Queen Mary's court stood in no danger, 
schoolmaster though he was, of producing a closet 
drama, or satisfying himself with a mere antiquarian 
revival. The reader feels himself everywhere in the 
world pictured by the ancient comic dramatists, — this 
is, indeed, the most remarkable quality in the work, — 
and he is reminded by incidents and figures now of the 
"Miles Gloriosus," now of other plays; but these ana- 
logies will not bear pressing. The slightest comparison 
shows that Roister Doister differs radically from 
» See Loaeley MSS., ed. A. J. Kempe, 1836. 



1(50 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Pyrgopolinices, both in his character and in his adven- 
tures; while Merry greek, though inevitably suggestive 
of tlie Latin ])arasite, has little actual affinity to any 
representative of the tyi)e. With the other characters 
the reminiscence of specific classic models almost en- 
tirely disappears, though the general flavor of classic 
"atmosphere" docs not. Udall has not attempted in 
"Roister Doister" to imitate any special Roman 
comedy, — not even in the free way in which Shake- 
speare imitates the "Mensechmi," or the autlior of 
"The Birth of Hercules " the " Amphitruo." ' Rather, 
he has evolved an entirely independent English comedy 
in classic style. He lias udopled consistently the ancient 
rules of act and scene division, and he has tried 
throughout to build up his play in harmony with the 
classical and scholarly conception of the nature of com- 
edy, seeking anuisement rather in the display of clever 
urbane wit and the baiting of fools and dupes than in 
farcical accident or rustic clownage. But in the work- 
ing out of this design, Udall shows nearly as much of 
the j)ractical playwright as of the theoretical innovator. 
His classical type-figures — the vain-glorious fool, the 
self-seeking busy-body, the desirable widow — absorbed 
from the native conventions of the interlude and from 
the ordinary life of the day qualities which differen- 
tiate them wholly from the characters of Plautus. 

As the dramatic crises approach, moreover, the poet 
yields to the savage native demand for a ruder species 
of excitement than mere words and irony can produce. 
Ignoring classic j)roprieties, he subjects his braggart 
Roister to the same rough handling which the braggart 

* See the very valuable edition of The Birth of Hercules (MS. ca. 
1610) prepared by M. W. Wallace, 1903. 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN COMEDY 161 

Walkyn of the Digby play * had received, and which 
formed the main comic resort of many an interlude. 
For an illustration of the difference between the real 
classic drama, even in its Plautine crudity, and Udall's 
fortunately semi-barbarized adaptation, one has only 
to compare the humiliation of I*yr}^oi)olinices ("Miles 
(iloriosus," V, i) with that of Roister. Much injury 
may be done to historical perspective by emphasiziug 
the indubitable classic tone of "Ralph Roister Doistcr" 
to the entire disregard of the play's legitimate connection 
with earlier English drama. Udall was, in resi)ect of 
one side of his varied genius, a direct continuator of 
the work of Hey wood ; and it is the special distinction 
of his play, not simf)ly that it embodies the careful art 
form and intellectual intrigue of Latin comedy, but 
that it establishes them as necessary constituents of the 
most advan(;ed and characteristic native drama. Sev- 
eral of the English types represented first in this com- 
edy play prominent parts on the later stage, one of the 
most vivid being the toothless old nurse, Marjorie 
Mumblecrust, much given to chattering and quarrel- 
ling, who will not stick for a kiss with such a gay gen- 
tleman as Roister Doister, but comes anon at the first 
offer of the salutation. Shakespeare's "Romeo and 
Juliet" and Marlowe's "Dido" add few new touches to 
this figure. 

A very interesting contrast is afforded by the com- 
parison of "Roister Doister" with the comedy which 
it is usual to regard as its most immediate successor. 
" Gammer Gurton's Needle" was published in 1575 as 
played " not longe ago in Christes Colledge in Cam- 
bridge," and written by a "Mr. S. Mr. of Art." The 
» Cf. p. ^l. 



162 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

author has been variously identified as Dr. John 
Bridges, Dr. John Still, and latterly, with great show of 
probability, as William Stevenson.^ If the last ascrip- 
tion is correct, the comedy can be referred pretty cer- 
tainly to the year 1559-1560, under which date the 
college records of Christ's note the expenditure of 5s. 
at the acting of "Mr. Stevenson's plaie." In any case 
the work probably antedates July 22, 1563, when Th. 
Colwell, the future publisher, registered what appears 
to be the same play under the title of "Dyccon of 
Bedlam." 

It is a striking circumstance that, whereas the peru- 
sal of "Roister Doister" impresses the student above 
all else with a sense of that play's classical restraint 
and careful attention to foreign rules of structure, the 
reader of "Gammer Gurton's Needle" feels predomi- 
nantly the native, "romantic" features of the work. 
This difference of impression is important because it 
results almost wholly from a change of "atmosphere," 
and not from any essential variation in the dramatic 
method or the comic materials employed by the two 
authors. "Gammer Gurton's Needle" follows the 
Latin rules of form not a whit less closely than " Roister 
Doister." Both plays exemplify with equal care the 
well-articulated five-act division, the ancient practice 
of beginning a new scene with the arrival of each new 
figure,^ the ordinary Roman fixed locale representing a 
street before several houses, and the limitation of the 
time of action to a single day. On the other hand, it 
cannot be held that the figures of "Roister Doister," 
vaguely reminiscent as they continually are of Latin 

* See H. Bradley in Gayley's Repr. Engl. Comedies, 197 flF. 

* A few exceptions to this rule occur in both plays. 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN COMEDY 163 

comedy, are in any appreciable measure less true to the 
real life of London than are those of "Gammer Gur- 
ton" to the English village society which that comedy 
portrays. The difference between the plays arises from 
a subtler cause. It shows how the various classic im- 
portations, which in the earlier work betray their for- 
eign origin and give to "Roister Doister," in spite of 
its really English plot, a rather stiff and unfamiliar 
movement, have been so thoroughly assimilated in 
"Gammer Gurton" that the reader nowhere feels them 
to be exotics. That twenty years — probably only 
ten — could show so great a progress is one of the 
special mysteries of Elizabethan dramatic transmu- 
tation. "Gammer Gurton's Needle" is on every 
true analysis a native English play, though its author 
has learned abroad the whole of his technique. In deal- 
ing with works of this sort we have to do not with for- 
eign, but with naturalized influences. 

Several of the characters in "Gammer Gurton's 
Needle" deserve closer study than can be asked for 
many of their predecessors in English comedy. The 
curate. Doctor Rat, .shows one of the most popular of 
the old literary types, the vicious priest, in the very 
process of metamorphosis into his equally popular 
post-reformation substitute, the knavish but jovial 
parson, who appears, for instance, in "Misogonus," 
"Sir John Oldcastle," and "The Merry Devil of 
Edmonton." In the central figure of the piece, Diccon 
the Bedlam, a merry-spirited village lago, laying plot 
upon plot with no other purpose than the gratification 
of his own super-subtle imagination, English drama 
received the very finest comic creation which it had yet 
to show. 



164 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

In 1566, the students of Gray's Inn gave a new turn 
to theatrical development by acting a translation of 
Ariosto's Italian comedy, "Gli Suppositi" (The Sub- 
stitutions), executed by one of their own number, 
George Gascoigne, and inaccurately entitled "The 
Supposes." Ariosto's play, first produced at Ferrara in 
1509, was the direct result of a strong revival of interest 
in Latin drama, which since 1486 had manifested itself 
throughout northern Italy in most elaborate perform- 
ances of Plautine and Terentian comedies. The "Sup- 
positi" occupies much the same relation to Plautus in 
point of originality as does "Ralph Roister Doister." 
Most of the incidents and stock types are suggestive of 
the "Captivi" or other plays, while the actual working 
out of details, both of plot and character, is the author's 
own. But whereas the English comic tradition, upon 
which the writers of "Roister Doister" and "Gammer 
Gurton's Needle" rely for their individual touches, was 
hardly able to raise the product above the level of 
farce, Ariosto has overlaid his borrowed framework 
with an intricate romantic love story. The characters 
bear for the most part Italian names, and the scene is 
frankly laid in Ferrara, the city of presentation . It is 
true that the chief figures in this play, as in "Roister 
Doister," belong in general to the ancient types: the 
garrulous nurse, the aged lover, the parasite, the schem- 
ing servant, the old father. But these have become 
thoroughly Italianate, and they possess all the sensual 
vividness which made the literature of the Italian 
renaissance so objectionable to moralists like Ascham, 
and so irresistibly seductive to English lovers of 
romance. "The Supposes" inaugurates the taste for 
Italian character and plot so notably exemplified in 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN COMEDY 165 

Shakespeare and all his great contemporaries. In many 
of the later instances, to be sure, this taste is inspired by 
mere convention and affectation, but it arose because 
in Gascoigne's time Italian influence was able to give 
the drama a romantic charm and plot interest, attain- 
able neither from the development of native tendencies, 
nor from direct imitation of the Latin masters. 

In "Misogonus" Italian example seems responsible 
for the existence of another early English comedy. 
This interesting work is extant in a damaged manu- 
script, signed on the first page: "Laurentius Bariona, 
Kettering, 1577." The names of Th. Richardes and 
Thomas Warde, of whom nothing further is definitely 
known, are appended to the Prologue, with precisely 
what significance is not clear. Recent proof amounting 
almost to certainty explains the Laurentius Bariona 
(i. e., Bar-jona) of this piece and of a " Cometographia," 
dated likewise at Kettering a few months later, as a 
punning Hebraism for Lawrence Johnson, who pro- 
ceeded M. A. of Christ's College, Cambridge in 1577.^ 
It has been customary, on the strength of a single allu- 
sion of no great importance, to refer the composition of 
"Misogonus" to the year 1560, and to regard L. Bari- 
ona as the mere transcriber; but we now possess 
evidence of at least equal weight, thanks to the acute 
inferences of Professor Kittredge, for believing Bariona- 
Johnson the original author. 

It is interesting to think of "Misogonus " as an aca- 
demic piece, produced after the lapse of fifteen years 
by the same Cambridge Society (Christ's) before which 
"Gammer Gurton's Needle" had been performed. At 
all events, comparison of the two plays proves a con- 

* See G. L. Kittredge, Journal of Germanic Philology, iii, 335. 



166 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

siderable expansion in the range of comedy. On the 
one hand, " Misogonus " represents a return to the 
prodigal son theme common to many of the later inter- 
ludes, such as "Nice Wanton," "The Disobedient 
Child," and "The Glass of Government." Many 
scenes of crude realism, like that in which the improvi- 
dent son riots in the tavern with Sir John the Priest 
and the meretrix Melissa, belong to the same genre as 
the whole of "Gammer Gurton." But to enrich these 
themes, recourse has been had to Italy and romance. 
The nominal scene of the action is Laurentum, though 
in accordance with invariable Elizabethan practice 
characters and setting have been completely Angli- 
cized. None of the suggestions so far hazarded con- 
cerning the specific source of the Italian plot is at all 
convincing, but it seems safe to assume that it was not 
in any great degree the invention of the English author. 
The story is a kind of converse of the famous Griseldis 
legend, which Petrarch and Boccaccio made illustrious, 
and which Chaucer's "Clerkes Tale" introduced to a 
lasting English vogue. The husband of Griseldis de- 
prives her successively of their two infant children, 
whom, under pretence of causing to be slain, he sends to 
Bologna to be brought up by a female relative (his sis- 
ter in Chaucer and Petrarch), whence he later restores 
them unexpectedly to the patient mother. In "Mis- 
ogonus," it is the wife, who, upon giving birth to twin 
sons, despatches the elder secretly to her brother at 
Apollonia (or Polonia; i. e., Bologna ?). There the boy, 
Eugonus, grows to manhood unknown, and is at last 
restored near the end of the piece in order to comfort 
his parent and punish the insolence of his vicious 
younger brother (Misogonus), the prodigal of the play. 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN COMEDY 167 

"Misogonus" is a work of too mixed a nature to af- 
ford easy reading; but the individual scenes have con- 
siderable power, and the play marks a distinct step 
onward in dramatic progress. The realistic tavern 
scenes; the portrayal of the misguided "filius domesti- 
cus"; and the characters of Cacurgus, the intriguing 
"Will Summer," — half clown, half parasite, — of the 
various servants of Misogonus and his father, of Me- 
lissa, and Sir John; the good rustic figures of Codrus the 
farmer and his wife Alison, Isbell Busbey, and Madge 
Caro, belong all to the type of native farce remodelled 
on classical lines of which "Roister Doister" is the 
most correct and "Gammer Gurton's Needle" prob- 
ably the most successful example. The author of " Mis- 
ogonus" has, however, strained his play to include a 
third element of dramatic interest which the taste of 
his time was beginning to demand. Besides the realis- 
tic portrayal of common life which was indigenous on 
the English stage, and the structural method which 
came from Rome, he has recognized the need of a 
graceful human story, and he appears to have bor- 
rowed the main thread of his plot from Italian romance. 
If the reader must admit that these elements are by no 
means perfectly blended, it is none the less inevitable 
that he perceive the vigor of each and realize that 
each has found its place in answer to a real dramatic 
want. Barring individual genius and" the assimilative 
force of twenty years of theatrical practice, "Miso- 
gonus" exemplifies every element of plot and every 
rule of structure which goes to make up such a play as 
"The Taming of the Shrew." 

The anonymous play of "The Bugbears" shows 
Italian influence exerted upon the Latin-English type 



168 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

of comedy in a manner neither so immediate as in Gas- 
coigne's confessed translation, nor so casual as in " Bar- 
iona's" grafting of a possibly non-dramatic romantic 
plot upon a stock of native farce. "The Bugbears" is 
based primarily, and in parts very closely, upon "La 
Spiritata" of Ant. Francesco Grazzini (d. 1583), but its 
dependence is by no means slavish. Besides altering 
the names of his characters, the author of the English 
play has changed the comic fable, and has enriched his 
work by importation both from other Italian comedies 
such as "Gr Ingannati " and the "Suppositi, " and also 
it would appear, directly from Terence's "Andria." 

Compared with "Misogonus," this comedy recom- 
mends itself by its unified and well-managed plot; 
compared with "The Supposes," it shows a freedom in 
selection and variation of borrowed material, which 
forbids us to regard it as a pure exotic. Historically, it 
is probably less important than either of these pieces. 
Since its main source, "La Spiritata," is supposed to 
have been first printed in 1561, it is unlikely that it will 
be able to displace "The Supposes" from its position 
as the first English adaptation of Italian comedy. Nor, 
on the other hand, does it manifest the juxtaposition 
of native and foreign elements, which renders "Mis- 
ogonus" so interesting a document in Elizabethan 
stage history. Intrinsically, however, "The Bugbears,'* 
which treats the popular Roman theme of the outwit- 
ting of aged greed by youthful love, is certainly one 
of the most successful products of Italian adaptation. 
Less purely imitative than "The Supposes," and less 
awkwardly transitional than "Misogonus," it is per- 
haps the first finished English comedy of its species. 
In its principal device of tlie mock conjurer it is the 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN COMEDY 169 

forerunner of a whole group of Jacobean plays, SHch as 
"The Puritan," "The Alchemist," and "Albumazar," 
"Fedele and Fortunio," or as the head-title of the 
extant edition has it, "The pleasaunt and fine con- 
ceited Cornoedie of two Italian Gentlemen, with the 
merie deuises of Captaine Crack-stone," is a free adap- 
tation of "II Fedele" by Luigi Pasqualigo(1575), and 
was entered on the Stationers' Register, November 12, 
1584. This play, which Collier ascribed to Anthony 
Munday * on the strength of a dedication signed "A.M.," 
seems to have been very commonly known in its day, 
and it makes fair reading still. The artificial compli- 
cation of love-plots, the clever trifling with the arts 
of incantation and the stock figures of braggart and 
pedant hold the interest; while the play possesses two 
adventitious claims to attention by reason of its em- 
ployment of the same trick through which Don John 
deceives Claudio in "Much Ado About Nothing," and 
by its neat illustration of the possibilities of the Eliza- 
bethan upper, or balcony, stage in connection with the 
fixed Roman street scene. 

John Lyly is the first dominating personality that 
confronts the historian of the English drama. His con- 
nection with the London stage, inaugurated about the 
year 1580, and rapidly followed by the appearance of 
other noteworthy figures, begins a new era, and necessi- 
tates on the part of the critic a new estimate of the re- 
lation between the individual dramatist and the dra- 
matic type. Hitherto, the playwrights of two centuries, 
figures often nameless and generally obscure, present 

^ Chapman has a better claim. See Malone Soc. " Collections," 
I, 221 ff. 



170 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

themselves to tlie student normally and properly as 
exponents of one strain or another in theatric evolu- 
tion. Henceforth, it is rather the play, in tlie most 
conspicuous and important cases, which becomes sub- 
sidiary to the reflection of the personality and char- 
acter of the poet. Thus judicial interest in the dra- 
matic species gives place ordinarily to appreciation of 
the individual dramatist. Yet it is by no means wise 
at this point to disregard the old threads of influence; 
for if it be true that they grow tangled by the caprice 
of personal genius, it is none the less certain that these 
same threads can still be traced through all the pro- 
cesses of the loom, and tJiat they determine by their 
presence or absence the color and texture of the result- 
ant fabric. 

The eight accepted plays of Lj'ly manifest no less 
certainly, though in far subtler fashion than the sim- 
pler works with which we have been dealing, the Latin 
influence upon English comedy. When Lj'ly wrote, the 
courtly drama with which he allied himself had already 
assimilated the technical lessons derived from the prac- 
tice of Plautus and Terence. Scene and act division, 
stock types like the parasite, the amiably knavish 
"boy" or servant, and the greedy parent were estab- 
lished institutions on the fashionable stage; and Te- 
rentian imitation was become conventional, if not spon- 
taneous. "Mother Bombie," one of the latest of 
Lyly's comedies {ca. 1590), is a remarkably successful 
adaptation of the Roman comic type to an English 
setting. The four old men, mutually decei\'ing and 
deceived; the three pairs of lovers taught by the 
pages to outwit their elders; and the motive of infant 
substitution, are all antique borrowings adjusted to 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN COMEDY 171 

the environment of Rochester, and vitalized by a genu- 
inely English humor. This play depends, like its Ro- 
man predecessors, entirely upon the involved intrigue 
and the wit of the dialogue; and it indicates the 
establishment of a type of comedy modelled on classic 
lines, which, though far from being adequately expres- 
sive of the Elizabethan dramatic spirit, yet maintained 
itself to the end of the period. 

In the other comedies of Lyly, an entirely new re- 
lation to classical sources betrays itself, — a relation 
analogous to that manifested in the Roman trage- 
dies of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. English classic 
drama here emerges from its period of conscious pupil- 
ship. At this epoch the lessons derived from the Latin 
playwrights had been so thoroughly mastered as to ap- 
pear almost indigenous; and dramatists who, like Lyly, 
give a general adhesion to classic rules of structure, and 
ring the changes on such popular types as the cunning 
witty servant or the pompous braggart, were probablj^ 
no longer seriously mindful of their debt. Lyly's con- 
fessed obligation to Roman literature is, indeed, more 
a matter of content than of form. Coming up to Lon- 
don about 1578 with the prestige of an Oxford M. A. 
received some three years earlier, Lyly embarked upon 
a courtier's career under the influential patronage of 
Burghley and Burghley's son-in-law, the Earl of Ox- 
ford. Successively, he achieved social fame as an in- 
novator in the two departments of fashionable fiction 
and fashionable drama, distinguishing himself in both 
by the freshness of his method and his extraordinary 
tact in apprehending and fixing the momentary taste 
of society. In "Euphues" (1578, 1580), he gave form 
and an undeserved degree of permanence to the pre- 



172 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

vailing aspiration after an elaborate artificial prose, 
rich in figure and conceit; and the success of euphuism 
furnished him with the most valuable of his resources 
when, soon after the appearance of his novel, he com- 
menced dramatist. The employment of prose in com- 
edy, purely casual in Gascoigne's translation of the 
"Suppositi," was in Lyly a deliberate effort at utilizing 
a special asset of the writer, — his popular euphuistic 
style. 

Lyly soon found himself in a position closely resem- 
bling that which John Heywood had occupied two gen- 
erations earlier, — commissioned, that is, to offer plays 
for presentation before noble audiences by the boys' 
companies of Paul's and the Queen's Chapel. Under 
these circumstances he appears to have labored for the 
attainment of two principal aims : novelty and ephem- 
eral appropriateness. As a professed scholar, catering 
to a public whose penchant was scholarism, it was 
nearly inevitable that he should turn to the classics for 
his inspiration. From the Latin comic poets, however, 
he could gain little of what he particularly sought. 
Plautus and Terence had been already laid under con- 
tribution, as we have seen. The best they had to offer 
in the way of form and plot had become far too familiar 
for the ambitious innovator, whose business it was to 
create a well-bred sensation. In "Mother Bombie" 
alone, which dates probably as late as 1589 or 1590, 
was Lyly content to stick to dramatic precedent and 
turn out a correct and not unconventional comedy 
after the Terentian model. His other plays are marked 
by a striving for the unique and graceful at whatever 
cost to the plot; and the qualities which he required he 
discovered most abundantly among the non-dramatic 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN COMEDY 173 

classics. In ancient tradition and history, as related 
by writers familiar to the Elizabethans, such as Pliny, 
Hyginus, iElian, and, above all, Ovid, Lyly had at 
hand a w^lth of material, which, in addition to its 
unfading daintiness, its comparative novelty on the 
English stage and its tremendous vogue elsewhere, pos- 
sessed the transcendent advantage that classic my- 
thology was in his day the universally understood lan- 
guage of courtly allegory and adulation. 

In "Campaspe," which was probably his first play, 
Lyly was content with the simple dramatization of an 
incident in the life of Alexander the Great, derived, as 
Mr. Bond has shown, from a chance anecdote in Pliny's 
Natural History (Bk. 35, ch. x), and from Plutarch's 
Life of Alexander, published very shortly before in 
North's translation (1579).^ For the deepening of the 
faint picture of ancient Athens thus secured, the poet 
very artlessly introduces the philosopher Diogenes, 
dragged periodically upon the stage in his tub to insult 
the world-conqueror or abuse his fellow citizens. A 
third independent element in this technically crude 
piece is constituted by the three humorous servants, 
Granichus, Manes, and Psyllus, who are borrowed 
from the current Terentian comedy of the day. 

Fundamentally, then, the important classical influ- 
ence in " Campaspe" is the fruit rather of the quest for 
novelty than of artistic conviction. Lyly's attitude to 
his sources is here more nearly that of Pikering, author 
of the transitional medley "Horestes," than that of 
Udall's critical school. Keenly desirous of fresh sub- 
jects, but lacking any special dramatic theory, Pikering 
and Lyly both turned naturally to the great magnet of 
^ See Lyly, ed. Bond, ii, 306 fiF. 



174 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

renaissance study, the ancient literatures, and took 
thence what was their most obvious superficial need, — 
an interesting fable. This fable each developed some- 
what roughly and without great evidence of individual 
dramatic initiative, after the fashion of his day. The 
difference between the two plays is no false measure of 
the progress achieved by English drama under classic 
guidance between the years 1560 and 1580. Pikering 
writes in a variety of rime forms without definite act or 
scene division, and he depends for comic relief upon 
passages of rustic buffoonery derived from the morality 
convention. Lyly , following the fashion of the moment 
in the case of " Campaspe " with equal docility, divides 
his play into acts and scenes as a matter of course, 
though he shows himself ignorant of the technical ad- 
vantages of this structure; and for the desired comic 
padding of his romantic drama, he resorts as natu- 
rally to the popular Latin theme of servant trickery as 
had Pikering to the old native clownage. Instead of 
the rough verse of "Horestes," Lyly substitutes prose 
of a highly euphuistic tone; and this, the only techni- 
cal feature of "Campaspe" which can at all be termed 
original, is patently the result, not of critical dramatic 
theory, but of the author's successful practice in an- 
other branch of literature. 

The six plays most representative of Lyiy's indi- 
vidual dramatic method fall naturally into two groups. 
Three of them — "Sapho and Phao" (1582 ?), "Endi- 
mion" (1586 ?), and "Midas" (1589 ?) — derive their 
plots from Latin mythology, and are obviously allegori- 
cal in nature. The other three — " Gallathea " (1584 ?), 
"Love's Metamorphosis" (1588-1589), and "The 
Woman in the Moon" (1591?) — though full of classic 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN COMEDY 175 

reminiscence, have in the main original pastoral plots, 
and if at all symbolic, are not predominantly or con- 
tinuously so. In these six dramas, Lyly shows a genius 
as fresh and at the same time as fantastic as that which 
he had earlier displayed in the prose innovations of 
"Euphues ": and he illustrates a new phase in the rela- 
tion between the English stage and the ancients. In a 
sense Lyly may be said to have entirely reversed the 
procedure of the early sponsors of classic influence. 
The mission of Udall and his fellows had been to bring 
the structure of English drama into conformity with 
Latin rule. Lyly takes upon himself the bolder task of 
forcing Latin story into harmony with native taste and 
contemporary interest; and his plays, therefore, while ■ 
evidencing everywhere the domestication of the formal 
lessons of Latin dramaturgy, show further that the 
period of close discipleship to Rome had passed, and \ 
that the English stage was now quite capable of aggres- 
sive assertion of its peculiar interests. 

The general interpretation of two of Lyly's allegori- 
cal comedies is hardly subject to doubt, and has not yet 
been questioned by any sane critic. " Sapho and Phao " 
is very obviously a flattering allusion to the matri- 
monial fiasco between Elizabeth and the Due d'Alen- 
gon, which, after dragging through a number of years, 
ended suddenly in nothing on February 6, 1582, — 
about a month, it seems, before the play was presented. 
Even more unmistakably " Midas " is a personal satire 
directed against the folly, rapacity, and cruelty of 
Philip II of Spain, and prompted by the general tri- 
umph over the debacle of the Armada in 1588. 

It is unfortunate, but not unnatural, that the under- 
standing of "Endimion," the most intricate and pi- 



176 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

quant of these allegorical plays, is at present obstructed 
by the existence of four rival interpretations, which 
are mutually contradictory, and which seem to me all 
super-subtle. In order to walk straight through the 
maze of conjecture and parti-pris, which thus besets 
the student of this comedy, it is necessary to keep in 
mind the reasonable limitations and the probable pur- 
poses of courtly allegory, Lyly's procedure in " Sapho 
and Phao" and in "Midas" certainly bears out inher- 
ent likelihood in indicating that the deliberate symbol- 
ism does not extend beyond a few of the most conspic- 
uous figures ; and that these figures, together with the 
occurrences among which they move, have a courtly 
and personal, rather than political, significance. The 
poet's desire, one would imagine, must certainly have 
been to deal with/a{/5 accomplis in such a manner as to 
flatter the person of principal importance — that is, 
the Queen — rather than to venture upon the hazard- 
ous course of upholding any particular court faction in 
a controversy still unsettled. Altogether, it seems clear 
that the story of the play, instead of reflecting in detail 
the real incidents of contemporary history, is rather a 
tissue of harmlessly imaginary pictures shot through 
with idealized references to such actual happenings as 
the poet might feel to be wholly devoid of offence to 
his royal auditress. The natural interpretation of the 
comedy, and the only one so far suggested which seems 
to rest on sane and logical premises, is that it delicately 
adumbrates the relations between the Queen and 
Leicester, representing Elizabeth, of course, in Cynthia, 
the Earl in Endimion. Leicester's third wife, Lettice, 
Countess of Essex, seems to be portrayed in Tellus; and 
possibly Lyly's patron Burghley in Eumenides, the 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN COMEDY 177 

faithful servant and adviser of Cynthia, who repri- 
mands the aspiring Endimion, and afterward by his 
generosity makes possible the latter's reconciliation 
with Cynthia. In the years just before and after 1579, 
this affair had been very acute; but in 1585-1586, when 
"Endimion" seems to have been written, the crisis 
was apparently well past. Leicester had ostensibly ab- 
jured his exorbitant ambition for the Queen's personal 
favor, Elizabeth's anger at his secret marriage had 
cooled, and the earl was at the moment engaged in 
military service in the Low Countries.^ 

There seems, then, good cause to regard " Endimion " 
as a loose, but infinitely tactful and graceful sketch 
of the relations of Elizabeth and Leicester previous to 
1585. Leicester's presumptuous pursuit of the celestial 
beauty, and his juggling between Tellus and Cynthia, 
are punished by that mistrust on the part of the sov- 
ereign which actually existed strongly for several years 
after 1579, and to which the play repeatedly alludes. 
The consequences are represented in the sleep into 
which Endimion falls, thus losing the youthful beauty 
naturally belonging to him as Elizabeth's avowed lover 
and lying dead (i. e., disgraced at court), — till his over- 
weening arrogance has been chastened, when the mag- 
nanimity of Eumenides and the lofty compassion of 
Cynthia restore him to purely political and impersonal 
favor. Meantime, Cynthia is, of course, presented — 
as the Queen would demand to appear, and as Shake- 
speare also paints her — as continuing through the 
play "in maiden meditation fancy-free, " entirely una- 

^ A more detailed exposition of the interpretation here indicated 
will be found in a paper on "The Allegory in Lyly's Endimion," 
Modern Language Notes, Jan., 1911. 



178 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

ware of the overwhelming adoration which she has 
inspired in sublunary breasts. 

Beside this fanciful and allegorical matter, which 
owes only the vaguest debt to classic literature, Lyly 
interweaves in each of the three plays under discussion 
purely farcical Plautine scenes of dupery and servant 
wit, such as he had already attempted in " Campaspe " ; 
and he succeeds better than one would expect in blend- 
ing the unhke strains. In "Sapho and Phao," the 
underplot is slightest and least suggestive of Latin 
comedy. Indeed, the scenes which portray Trachinus 
the courtier and the scholar Pandion, with their pages, 
Criticus and Molus, are rather unsuccessful original 
efforts in the "Euphues" vein than importations from 
Rome. But in the other allegories the Plautine influ- 
ence is clear and increasingly strong. In "Endimion" 
it makes up about a third of the play, in "Midas" 
nearly a full half. It has perhaps not been sufficiently 
noted that Lyly was setting an example for Shake- 
speare in thus mingling the impalpably imaginary with 
the most opaque realism. The Sir Tophas - Epiton- 
Bagoa scenes in "Endimion" were certainly imitated 
in the Armado-Moth-Jaquenetta matter of "Love's 
Labour 's Lost," and Shakespeare's bringing together 
of Titania and Bottom in "A Midsummer-Night's 
Dream" is only that young poet's direct development 
of Lyly's practice. 

Lyly's three pastoral plays differ radically among 
themselves, and are likely to impress the reader as cas- 
ual, tentative productions, defective like "Campaspe" 
in conscious dramatic purpose, and lacking the deft- 
ness of execution which the author developed in his 
handling of court allegory. The most attractive of 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN COMEDY 179 

the three is the earliest, "Gallathea," with its rather 
pleasing picture of an imaginary pastoral Lincolnshire, 
tenanted by pagan deities, nymphs, and sea-monsters. 
The absurd plot leads to an utterly absurd conclusion, 
but the atmosphere of the piece is delicately alluring. 
The similarity of at least one of the love scenes be- 
tween the maidens Gallathea and Phillida, disguised as 
boys (IV, iv), and those between Orlando and the 
false Ganimede shows that this play also formed part 
of the dramatic equipment of Shakespeare. "Love's 
Metamorphosis " offers a dramatic version of the eighth 
book of Ovid, combined with a slight and purely fanci- 
ful story of nymphs and foresters. " The Woman in the 
Moon," the only one of Lyly's accepted plays written 
in verse, has no underplot, and is further remarkable 
as a portrayal in very large part of the frailties of 
women, — in noteworthy contrast to the author's usual 
cringing attitude to the other sex. The mock mytho- 
logy upon which this play depends is rather poor stuff, 
and the picture of the woes of the four Arcadian shep- 
herds and the clownish servant Gunophilus at the hands 
of the beautiful vixen Pandora, though animated, has 
none of the stately charm and delicacy of Lyly's more 
characteristic method. 

It was only in his three allegorical comedies that 
Lyly effected a great advance in the relation of English 
drama to classic literature. In the case of the pastoral 
plays just named, he appears to have been groping 
somewhat darkly in a region where other poets were 
already moving with considerable freedom. Masque- 
like productions, such as Gascoigne's show of Zabeta, 
prepared among the "princely pleasures" at Kenil- 
worth in 1575, Churchyard's "Entertainment in Suf- 



180 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

folk and Norfolk" (1578), and Sidney's "Lady of 
May" of the latter year, show how blended figures 
from Utopian shepherd life and from orthodox or in- 
vented mythology were being extensively exploited on 
the fashionable amateur stage. Furthermore, the type 
of mythological pastoral, to which Shakespeare offered 
partial homage in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream," 
had attained full development at a period level with 
Lyly's earliest dramatic efforts in the charming work 
of a sweeter and truer poet than Lyly, — in George 
Peele's "Arraignment of Paris" (1581?). This delight- 
ful dramatic idyl illustrates equally with the plays of 
Lyly the tendency of the Elizabethan stage to turn 
from the cold realism of the classic comedy to the more 
romantic narrative poets. The preponderating Latin 
influence upon Lyly is everywhere Ovid. In the case of 
Peele, it is Vergil. The shepherds of "The Arraign- 
ment of Paris," moreover, have names and charac- 
ters borrowed from Spenser's "Shepherds' Calendar" 
(1579), and Spenser's debt, like Peele's, goes back to 
the Mantuan poet, partly direct, partly through the 
medium of Clement Marot and the other French Ver- 
gilians of the "Pleiade." 

A yet more advanced position is held by "The Rare 
Triumphs of Love and Fortune," published in 1589, 
and announced as "Plaide before the Queenes most ex- 
cellent Maiestie." This work introduces the gods and 
goddesses of Greek belief merely as a kind of chorus 
and explanation to a pretty story of thwarted princely 
lovers, who wander from court to forest and back again, 
finally receiving their happiness by special arrangement 
between Jupiter, Fortune, and Venus. As regards the 
human figures, " The Rare Triumphs " is almost pure 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN COMEDY 181 

romantic drama, owing its effects to the sometimes 
amusing, sometimes startling actions of the disguised 
benevolent hermit, and to the triangle of passion which 
evolves itself between the heroine, her lover, and her 
brother. Only in the figure of the mischief-making 
parasite, Penulo, and in the Olympian framework does 
there remain any trace of the classic note which had 
been so dominant in earlier attempts to catch the fancy 
of the Queen. 

And so one finds on retrospect that the influence of 
classical literature upon the English comic stage, which 
had begun to manifest itself slightly before the accession 
of Elizabeth as a mechanical agent in the establish- 
ment of principles of structure and the dissemination 
of a fashion for Plautine realism, was by 1590 showing 
itself mainly in works of pure fancy. The contrast is 
only one manifestation of the general deepening of the 
romantic cast of drama, which made itself everywhere 
felt during the great decade of Elizabethan comedy 
(1590-1600), — not only in the court plays we have 
treated, but in the more catholic "romantic comedies" 
of Greene and Shakespeare. Viewed in connection with 
the sudden revulsion to realism after 1600, this brief 
reign of imaginative ideality in the fin de siecle comedy 
becomes one of the most conspicuous and significant 
indications of the spirit of the epoch. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

GENERAL COMMENTARY 

Collins, J. C. : The Predecessors of Shakespeare in Essays and 

Studies, 1895. 
Cunliffe, J. W. : The Influence of Italian on Early Elizabethan 



182 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Drama, Mod. Phil., iv, 597-604, 1907. Italian Prototypes of 

the Masque and Dumb Show, Publ. Mod. Lang. Ass., xxii 

(1907), 140. 
Gayley, C. M. : An Historical View of the Beginnings of Eng- 
lish Comedy, in Representative English Comedies, 1903. 
Graf, H. : Der Miles Gloriosus im englisclien Drama bis zur 

Zeit des Biirgerkrieges, Schwerin, 1891. 
Koeppel, E. : Studien zur Geschichte der italienischen No- 

velle in der englisclien Litteratur des ICten Jahrhuuderts, 

1892. 
Reinhardstoettner, K. v. : "Plautus und Terenz und ihr Ein- 

Huss anf die spiiteren Litteraturen," in Plautus, 1886. 
Schucking, L. L. : Studien iiber die stoiHichen Beziehungen der 

englischen Komudie zur italienischen bis Lilly, Ilalle a. S., 

1901. 
Smith, Wiuifred : Italian and Elizabethan Comedy, Mod. PMl.f 

V (1908), 555-567. 

TUDOR TRANSLATIONS OF PLAUTUS AND TERENCE 

Terence. Andria : Terens in englysh. ..." The translacyon out 
of Latin into englysh of the furst comedy of tyrens callyd 
Andria," n. d. (1520 ?) (Latin and English.) — The Jirst Co- 
moedie of Terence, in English. " A furtherance for the attain- 
ment vnto the right knowledge, & true proprietie, of the Latin 
Toug. . . . Carefully translated out of Latin, by Maurice Kyf- 
fiu," 1588. 

Flourea for Latine speakyng, selected and gathered out of Ter- 
ence, and the same translated into englyshe . . . Compiled by 
Nicholas Udall. 1st ed. ca. 1533. Newly corrected and im- 
printed, 1560. Enlarged editions, 1575, 1581. 

Terence in English. Fabulw comici . . . Terentii omnes Angli- 
cce facta' (by Richard Bernard), 1598. Five other editions be- 
fore 1643. Contains translations of Adelphi, Andria, Eunuchus, 
Heautontimoroumenos, Hecyra, Phormio. 

Plautus : Menaecmi. A pleasant and fine Conceited Comadie, 
taken out of the most excellent wittie Poet Plautus. . . . Written 
in English by W. IF(arner), 1595. Reprinted, J. Nichols, 
Six Old Plays, I, 1779 ; Ilazlitt, Shakespeare's Library, v, 
1875. 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN COMEDY 183 

I. Comedies showino the Direct Influence of Plautus 
AND Terence 

Jack Juggler: " A new P^nterlude for Cliyldren to playe named 
lacke lugeler . . . Newly Iinprented," W. Copland, n. d. 
Facsimile, E. W. Ashbee, 1870, and J. W. Farmer. Re- 
printed, J. Haslewood, Two Interludes, 1820 ; F. J. Child, 
Four Old Playx, 1848; A. B. Grosart, Misc. Fuller Worthies Li- 
brary, vol. iv, 1873; llazlitt, Dodsley, ii, 1874 ; J. S. Farmer, 
Anonymous Plays, Series iii, 1906; W. II. Williams, Materi- 
alien (in preparation). 

Udall, Nicholas: Ralph Roister Doister. Licensed to Thomas 
Hacket, 1566/7. Copy lacking title-page, in Eton College Li- 
brary. Reprinted, T. Briggs, 1818 ; F. Marshall, 1821 ; T. White, 
Old English Drama, vol. i, 1830 ; W. D. Cooper, Shakespeare 
Society, 1847 (with Gorhoduc); E. Arber, English Reprints, 
1809 ; llazlitt, Dndsley, iii, 1874 ; J. M. Manly, Specimens, ii, 
1897; W. H. Williams and P. A. Robins, Temple Dramatists, 
1901; J. S. Farmer, two uncritical reprints, 1906 and 1907; 
E. Fliigel, in Gayley's Representative English Comedies, 1903. 
Discussion : E. Fliigel, " Nicholas Udall's Dialogues and Inter- 
ludes," Furnivall Miscellany, xiii, pp. 81 ff, 1901; J. W. Hales, 
" The Date of the First English Comedy," Engl. Stud., xviii, 
408-421, 1893 ; D. L. Maulsby, "The relation between Udall'a 
' Roister Doister * and the Comedies of Plautus and Terence," 
Engl. Stud., xxxviii (1907), 251 ff; M. Walter, " P.eitrage zu 
Ralph Roister Doister," Engl. Stud., v (1882), 07-84 ; W. H. 
Williams, " Ralph Roister Doister," Engl. Stud., xxxvi (1906), 
179-186. 

Stevenson, William ? : Gammer Gurton'a Needle. " A 
Ryght Pithy, Pleasaunt and merie Comedie : Intytuled Gam- 
mer gurtons Nedle : Played on Stage, not longe ago in 
Christes Colledge in Cambridge. Made by Mr. S. Mr. of 
Art," Th. Col well, 1575. Facsimile, J. S. Farmer, 1910. Re- 
printed 1661 ; T. Plawkins, Origin of the English Drama, 1773 ; 
Dodsley, all edd. ; The Ancient British Drama, 1810, vol. i ; J. 
M. Manly, Specimens, ii, 1897 ; II. Bradley in Representative 
English Comedies, 1903. J. S. Farmer, Anonymous Plays, 
3d Series, 1906. Discussion: C. M. Ross, Anglia, xix (1896), 
297, " The Authorship of Gammer Gurton's Needle." 



184 THE TUDOR DRAIMA 

The Birth of Hercules. Free translation fi-om Amphitruo. MS., 
Brit. Mus. PrinU'd, M. VV. Wallace, 1903. 

Shakespeare, William : The Comedy of Errors. First 
printed in the 1623 Shakespeare Folio. 
To the same class belong also the following later plays : — 

Heywood, Thomas : The Captives, or the Lost Recov- 
ered. MS. Printed, A. H. Bullen, Old Plays, vol. iv, 1885. 

JoNSON, Benjamin : The Alchemist. Acted 1610, printed 
1612. Included in the 1616 Jonsou Folio, and in the later col- 
lected editions. 

II. Plats showing the Influence of Italian Adaptations 
OF Classical Comedy 

Gascoigne, George : Collected Works, including The Sup- 
poses: " A hundreth sundrie Flowres bounde up in one small 
Poesie," printed for R. Smith, n. d. ; "The Posies of George 
Gascoigne Esquire," 1575 ; " The pleasauntest workes of 
George Gascoigne Esquyre : Newly conipyled into one Vol- 
ume," 1587; "The Complete Poems of George Gascoigne," 
2 vols., 1869 ; J. W. Cunliffe, The Works of George Gas- 
coigne, vol. i, 1907. General Commentary : F. E. Schelling, " The 
Life and Writings of George Gascoigne," 1893 ; " Three 
Unique Elizabethan Dramas," Mod. Lang. Notes, May, 1892. 
The Supposes. Reprinted, T. Hawkins, Origin of the English 
Drama, vol. iii, 1773 ; J. W. Cunliffe, Belles Lettres Series, 
1906 (with Joca-tta); R. W. Bond, 1911. 

Misogonus. MS., dated 1577, in Devonshire Collection. 
Printed, A. Brandl, Quellen, 1898 ; J. S. Farmer, Six Anony- 
mous Plays, 2d Series, 1906 ; R. W. Bond, 1911. Discu.mon : 
G. L. Kittredge, "The Misogonus and Laurence Johnson," 
Journal Germ. Phil., iii, 335-337. 

The Bugbears. MS. in Brit. Mus. (Lansdowne, 807). Printed, 
C. Grabau, Herrig's Archiv, 98, 99 (1897); R. W. Bond, 1911. 

The Two Italian Gentlemen. Reprinted, F. Fliigge, Herrig's 
Archiv, cxxiii (1909), Malone Society, 1910. 

The Taming of a Shrew. "A Pleasant Conceited Historie, 
called the Taming of a Shrew." Printed by P. Short for C. 
Burbie, 1594. Facsimiles by E. W. Ashbee, 1876 ; C. Prseto- 
rius, 1886. Reprinted 1596 ; 1607 ; T. Amyot, Shakespeare 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN COMEDY 185 

Society^ 1844 ; W. C. Hazlitt, Shakespeare's Library, vol. vi, 
1875 ; F. S. Boas, Shakespeare Classics, 1908. 
The Taming of the Shrew. First printed in the 1623 Shake- 
speare Folio. Piiblislied separately, " A wittie and pleasant 
comedie called The Taming of the Shrew . . ." W. S. for 
John Smethwicke, 1631. Discussion: E. H. Schomberg, "The 
Taming of the Shrew. Eine Studie zu Shaksperes Kunst," 
Studien zur engl. Philologie, xx, 1904 ; A. H. Tolraan, " Shake- 
speare's Part in the Taming of the Shrew," Puhl. Mod. Lang. 
Ass., V, 1890; "The Origin of Induction to Taming of the 
Shrew," Shakespeare Society Papers, vol. ii. 

in. Plays showing Characteristic National Adaptations 
OF THE Principles op Classic Comedy 

Lyly, John : Collected editions of his plays : E. Blount, " Sixe 
Court Comedies. Often Presented and Acted before Queene 
Elizabeth, by the Children of her Maiesties Chappell, and 
the Children of Paules. Written By . . . lohn Lilly, Master 
of Arts," 1632 (includes Endimion, Campaspe, Sapho and 
Phao, Galalhea, Mydas, Mother Bomhie) ; F. W. Fairholt, Dra- 
matic Works, 2 vols., 1858; R. W. Bond, "The Complete 
Works of John Lyly," 3 vols., 1902. General Criticism: 
W. Bang and H. de Vocht, " John Lyly und Erasmus," 
in Englische Studien, xxxvi, 1906, 386-389 ; Bond, R. W., 
"John Lyly: Novelist and Dramatist," Quarterly Review, 
Jan., 1896; Bond, " Lyly's Doubtful Poems," Athenceum, May 
9, 1903 ; A. Feuillerat, " John Lyly. Contribution a I'histoire 
de la renaissance en Angleterre," 1910 ; J. Goodlet, " Shak- 
spere's Debt to John Lilly," Engl. Stud., v (1882), 350-363; 
W. W. Greg, "On the Authorship of the Songs in Lyly's 
Plays," Mod. Lang. Review, i (1905), 43-52 ; C. C. Hense, 
"John Lilly und Shakespeare," Sh. Jh. vii, 238 ff, viii, 224-279 
(1872-73) ; J. D. Wilson, " John Lyly," Harness Prize 
Essay, 1905; K. Steinhauser, "John Lyly als Dramatiker," 
Halle, 1884. 

Individual Plays of Lyly : — 

Campaspe. Three early editions are known : — 

(a) " Campaspe. Played beefore the Queenes Maiestie on new- 
yeares day at night, by her Maiesties Children, and the 
Children of Paules." Th. Cadman, 1584. 



186 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

(b) *' A moste excellent Coiuedie of Alexander, Cauipaspe, 

and Diogenes. Played before the Qiieenes Maiestie on 
twelfe day at night . . ." Th. Cadman, loS-i. (Said to 
be identical with former in text.) 

(c) "Campaspe. Played beefore the Queenes maiestie on 

twelfe day at night . . ." William Broome, 1591. 
Reprinted, Dodsley, Reed's and Collier's editions, 1780, 1825; 
The Ancient British Drama, vol. i, 1810 : J. M. Manly, Speci- 
mens, ii, 1897; G. P. Baker in Representative English Comedies, 
1903. Duicussion : E. Koeppel, " Zu Lyly's Alexander and 
Campaspe," Herrig's Archiv, ex (1903); A. B. Prowse, "Na- 
ture Notes on Campaspe," /I carff my, 1880; 11. Sprenger, " Zu 
John Lilly's Campaspe," EnghStud., xvi (1892), 156. 

Sapho and Phao. " Played beefore the Queenes Maiestie on 
Shrouetewsday, by her Maiesties Children, and the Boyes 
of Paules." Th. Cadman, 1584. Another edition, William 
Broome, 1591. Discussion : V. J. Tcggart, Poet-lore, viii, 29-33. 

Endimion, The Man in the Moone. " Playd before the 
Queenes Maiestie at Greenewich on Candlemas day at night, 
by the Chyldren of Paules." Printed by I. Charlewood for 
the widow Broome, 1591. Reprinted, G. P. Baker, 1894. Dis- 
cussion : N. J. Halpin, " Oberon's Vision in Midsummer- 
Night's Dream, Illustrated by a Comparison with Lylie's 
Endymion," Shakespeare Society, 1843; P. W. Long, "The 
Purport of Lyly's Endymion," Publ. Mod. Lang. Ass., xxiv 
(1909); C. F. T. Brooke, "The Allegory in Lyly's Endimion," 
Mod. Lang, Notes, Jan., 1910 ; D. J. Mackenzie, Byways 
Among Books, " An Elizabethan f^ndymion," 1900. 

Gallathea. " As it was playde before the Queenes Maiestie at 
Greene-wiche, on Newyeeres day at Night. By the Chyldren 
of Paules." lohn Charlewoode for the Widdow Broome, 1592. 

Midas. " Plaied before the Queenes Maiestie upon Twelfe day 
at night. By the Children of Paules," 1592. 

Mother Bombie. " As it was sundrie times plaied by the Chil- 
dren of Powles." Cuthbert Burby, 1594. Another edition, 1598^ 

The Woman in the Moon. " As it was presented before her 
Ilighnesse. By lohn Lyllie maister of Artes," 1597. 

Love's Metamorphosis. " A Wittie and Courtly Pastorall. 
Written by Mr. lohn Lyllie. First playd by the Children of 
Paules, and now by the Children of the Chappell," 1601. 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN COMEDY 187 

Peele, George : The Arraignment of Paris. " A Pastorall. 

Presented before the Queenes Maiestie, by the Children 

of her Chappell." H. Marsh, 1584. Reprinted separately, 

O. Srneaton, Temple Dramatists, 1905 ; Malone Soc, 1910. 
The Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune. " Plaide before 

the Queenes most excellent Maiestie: wherein are many fine 

Conceites with great delight," 1589. Reprinted, J. P. Collier, 

" Five Old Plays," Roxburghe Club, 1851; Hazlitt, Dodsley, vi, 

1874. 
The Maid's Metamorphosis. " As it hath bene sundry times 

Acted by the Children of Powles," IGOO. Reprinted, A. H. 

Bullen, Old Plays, vol. i, Tudor Reprints and Parallel Texts, 

1908; R. W. Bond, Lyly's Works, iii. 
Gascoigne, Gkorge : Masque of Zabeta. " Princely Pleasures 

at the Court at Kenclworth," 1575. Ilazlitt's ed., ii, 108-123. 
Sidney, Sir Philip: The Lady of May. " Entertainment of 

her Majesty at Wanstead," 1578. Gray's ed., 18G0, 265 ff. 
Churchyard, T. : The Queen's Entertainment in Suffolk 

and Norfolk. Reprinted, J. Nichols, *' Progresses ... of 

Queen Elizabeth." 
Chapman, George : All Fools, 1605. Discussion: E. Koeppel, 

" Quellen Studien zu den Dramen George Chapman'.s, Ph. 

Massinger's, und John Ford's," 1897. E. Woodbridge, " An 

unnoted Source of Chapman's All Fools," Jrl. Germ. PhU., i, 

338-341. See bibliography to eh. xi. 



CHAPTER VI 

CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN TRAGEDY ' 

In certain points of outward form — notably in the 
matter of act and scene division, and in the nowhere 
dominant tendency toward unity of time and place — 
Roman comedy and tragedy exerted upon the English 
drama a practically identical influence. Imitations of 
Seneca's tragedies followed very close upon the intro- 
duction of PlaUtine comedy, and in the case of such 
tragi-comical medleys as "Damon and Pithias" it is 
hardly practicable to determine the exact provenance 
of the classical elements. One of the results of Latin 
study was, however, a growing appreciation of the dif- 
ference between comedy and tragedy, and a considera- 
tion of the Elizabethan plays moulded on Roman pre- 
cedent shows that Senecan tragedy exercised over the 
drama a force not altogether analogous to that of the 
Latin comic writers. This diversity of effect is ac- 
counted for not by any great disparity in power be- 
tween the comedy and the tragedy of Rome, but by the 
very striking difference in the degree in which the 
native English stage was adapted to the development 
of comic and tragic themes. 

The interlude had evolved entirely in the direction 
of comedy, and hence had kept alive popular interest 
in. this form of drama alone. The earliest imitations of 
Plautus and Terence found a general public not only 
prepared to appreciate them, but positively eager for 
improvement and novelty in this line. From the very 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN TRAGEDY 189 

first, therefore, classical English comedy had a popular 
tone. Such early aca'demic efiForts even as "Roister 
Doister" and "Gammer Gurton's Needle" — the one 
destined almost certainly for presentation as a school 
exercise, the other for performance at a Cambridge 
college — have a perfectly general appeal, and show a 
large if not predominating infusion of native humorous 
material. The domestication and nationalizing of Latin 
comic influence was thus immediate because of the 
vigor and assimilative force of native English comedy. 

The first imitators of Latin tragedy, on the other 
hand, appealed to no established taste and satisfied no 
conscious popular want. Thirty years of Elizabeth's 
reign, indeed, passed before any widespread public in- 
terest in genuine tragedy manifested itself. Appealing 
only to limited circles of scholarly amateurs and af- 
fected by no home-born conventions or precedents, the 
English followers of Seneca remained considerably 
nearer to their original than the adapters of Latin 
comedy; and they started a fashion of academic trag- 
edy which maintained itself in successive phases 
through the entire reign of Elizabeth, wholly independ- 
ent of the popular stage and usually in opposition to it. 

The ultimate model of classic tragedy was furnished 
for the Elizabethans by the ten plays ascribed to the 
philosopher Seneca. Of these dramas, widely studied 
in renaissance Europe, at least six had appeared in 
English translation between the years 1559 and 1566;* 
and in 1581 the different versions were collected into 
a single volume by Thomas Newton, with the addition 
of the omitted "Thebais," "Hippolytus," and "Her- 

1 A translation of a seventh play, Octavia, was printed about 
the same time, without date. 



190 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

cules (Etieus." ^ As in the case of comedy, Latin trag- 
edy exorcised an indirect control over English drama 
through the moans of Italian imitation; and during the 
last two decades of the Tudor period a third wave of 
influence reached the country in the efforts of the Coun- 
tess of Pembroke's coterie to domesticate tlie work of 
the French Senecan school. Contact witli Greek trag- 
edy is evident only in Lady Lumloy's dilettante ren- 
dering of "Iphigenia at Aulis," preserved in a single 
private manuscript; and very indirectly in the "Jo- 
casta," translated by Gascoigne and Kinwelmersh 
from Dolco's Italian play, which is itself a variation at 
second hand of Euripides. 

Elizabethan tragedy borrowed from Seneca and long 
retained the ghost, the chorus, and tlie predilection for 
gruesome plots involving hereditary sin or unnatural 
crime. The great and lasting contribution was, of course, 
blank verso, — a happy accident first hit upon by 
Surrey as a substitute for Vergilian hexameter, and 
confirmed by the authors of "Gorboduc" as the repre- 
sentative of the Senecan senarius. For this all impor- 
tant innovation Latin tragedy can claim only indirect 
credit. Yet without the example it afforded it might 
have been long before English playwrights discarded 
the undramatic stanzaic verse and the slovenly alexan- 
drines or " fourteeners " of the day. Other features of 
Seneca's style — his tendency to extended self-analy- 
sis and reflection, his love of sententious epigram and 
the cut and thrust of sticho-mythic dialogue — were 

^ The translation of the Thebah, which is fragmentary, was made 
by Newton, the editor of the collection. The versions of the other 
two plays, by John Studley, were probably contemporary with 
Studley s renderings of Agamemnon and Mcdca, printed in 1566. 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN TRAGEDY 191 

carefully transplanted into English tragedy, where 
they did much to create a sense of form and to raise the 
drama to the dignity of a conscious literary product, a 
dignity to which it originally made no claim and which 
it was long in winning. 

Pure Senecan tragedy was always in the nature of 
an academic exercise, occupying a middle ground be- 
tween the popular theatre and the collegiate patronage 
of untranslated Latin drama. The first extant example 
of the type, and therefore the earliest strict tragedy 
in the English vernacular, is "Ferrex and Porrex," or 
"The Tragedie of Gorboduc," as the first, unauthor- 
ized, edition of the play less aptly terms it. Concerning 
the external history of this work a considerable amount 
of information is preserved by the various title-pages 
and prefaces. It was written — the first three acts by 
Thomas Norton, the rest by Thomas Sackville, later 
Earl of Dorset — for performance before Queen Eliza- 
beth at Whitehall on January 18, 1561-1562. In 1565, an 
imperfect and pirated edition was brought out surrep- 
titiously, and some five years later the authors saw fit 
to publish the true version. 

As an equivalent of the horrors of Greek mythology, 
the writers of "Ferrex and Porrex" and several other 
Senecan tragedies chose gruesome passages from the 
mythical history of Britain. These stories of the leg- \ 
endary descendants of Brute, derived from Geoffrey of 
Monmouth's "Historia Britonum," became one of the 
most fruitful sources of Elizabethan dramatic plot, fur- 
nishing forth at least ten extant plays, of which two 
are the acknowledged and two others the reputed per- 
formances of Shakespeare.* The later workers in this 
' Viz., King Lear, Cymheline, Locrine, The Birth of Merlin. 



\ 



192 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

field were attracted to it mainly by the idyllic charm 
of the Arthurian atmosphere and the romantic excite- 
ment of the incidents; but the inaugurators of the Sene- 
can method turned thither undoubtedly in search of 
the ghastly horror which the Roman dramatist had 
found and exploited in Greek legend, and they did not 
scruple to distort Geoffrey's narrative in order to bring 
into bold relief the favorite Latin themes of ancestral 
impiety and avenging fate. 

The authors of "Ferrex and Porrex" wrote with a 
purpose. It was their design to present before the 
young queen, who had sat only four years upon her 
throne, a lurid picture of the terrors attendant upon an 
unsettled succession. The disastrous folly of the old 
king Gorboduc, who Lear-like transmits and divides 
his trust of sovereignty before death has relieved him of 
it; the discord, and the unnatural fate that befalls each 
of the jointly ruling sons, Ferrex and Porrex, and the 
black consequences of the original fault in extirpation 
of the sinning family and ruin of the kingdom consti- 
tute a theme suggestive at once of the Greek story of 
the war of the sons of Oedipus and the destruction 
of Thebes. Except only in disregarding the unities of 
time and place, the treatment follows step by step the 
practice of Seneca and the rules of Horace till the close 
of the fourth act, where, the tragedy having properly 
concluded in the death of all the main figures, the 
author (Sackville) permits himself a dramatically su- 
pererogatory excursus upon the sufferings of an ungov- 
erned state. It is doubtless true, as Professor Manly 
remarks, that the play really exists for the sake of this 
excrescent fifth act and the numerous homiletic pas- 
sages in the earlier part, all designed to make clear to 





ROXANA 

TRACL«DIA 



'■■ iiuct/t. r.L^ 
ii iidntta ah' 

.tttTilJI'C 

\ Ciujictmc 




V-^- ^v¥ xi^ 

^^4-^^^-'^--'^ 



1^ s,.-^ V" 




TITLE-PAGE OF WILLIAM ALABASTER'S 
LATIN TRAGEDY OF "ROXANA," 1632 

Giving a picture of an academic stage, with 
actors and audience 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN TRAGEDY 193 

the royal auditress her duty of preserving the throne 
by immediate marriage from the danger of conflicting 
claimants. 

The blank verse of "Ferrex and Porrex," that as- 
cribed to Norton hardly less than the more famous 
verse of Sackville, is remarkably regular and eupho- 
nious. From this accurate, if somewhat too sedate, 
metre to that of Marlowe is certainly a long step, but 
it is only one; and it can hardly be said that the quar- 
ter century which intervened between this play and 
"Tamburlaine" produced any very material advance 
in point of versification. The peculiar characteristics 
of the drama and the way in which it measured up to 
sixteenth-century critical standards are both indicated 
very fairly in Sidney's famous appreciation:^ "It is full 
of stately speeches and well sounding Phrases, clyming 
to the height of Seneca his stile, and as full of notable 
moralitie, which it doth most delightfully teach, and 
so obtayne the very end of Poesie." 

"Ferrex and Porrex" domesticated in English Sene- 
can tragedy a characteristic which, though possessing 
no counterpart in the classical drama, became as not- 
able a feature of the type as the ghost or the chorus. 
This was the dumb-show, which preceded each act 
even as the chorus followed it, — the one symbolizing 
pictorially the events to ensue, the other pointing the 
moral and reporting briefly such circumstances as 
could not conveniently be staged. The dumb-show is 
the only significant element which early Senecan drama 
derived from native convention : it seems to have been 
in the main a heritage taken over by this new aristo- 
cratic species from the older court and collegiate per- 
* Apologie for Poetrie, ed. Shuckburgh, 51, 5S2. 



194 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

formances, and it is properly an evidence of the select 
and undemocratic nature of the plays in which it 
appears.^ 

Throughout the Tudor period fashionable celebra- 
tions at Christmas and upon other gala occasions had 
been accompanied by elaborate muramings and ta- 
bleaux, under the direction of a Lord of Misrule. The 
records of the Revels Office bear witness to the costly 
nature of such entertainments, even during the reign 
of the earlier monarchs, and the surpassing extrava- 
gance of the Jacobean masques is well known. The in- 
troduction of the ornamental dumb-show before the 
various acts of the courtly Senecan tragedy was prob- 
ably in some measure the result of an attempt to com- 
bine with genuine dramatic interest the scenic display 
possessed by these rival attractions of fashionable 
merry-making. 

The Senecan ideal of tragedy held the scholarly 
stage virtually unchanged for nearly a generation. 
In the crucial year of Elizabeth's reign, 1587, eight 
gentlemen of Gray's Inn, of whom Thomas Hughes 
was the chief and Francis Bacon the most famous, pre- 
sented before the Queen at Greenwich a play generally 
referred to as "The Misfortunes of Arthur." This work 
represents no change of structure or theorj'^ from the 
drama of Norton and Sackville, which the Queen had 
witnessed six - and - twenty years before. In the later 
play, as in the earlier, we have the disregard of vmities 
coupled with the careful observance of classic rule 

* For a discussion of the subsidiary Italian influence upon the 
development of the dumb-show, see J. W. Cunliffe, " Italian Pro- 
totypes of the Masque and Dumb Show," Publ. Mod. Lang. Assoc., 
xxii (1907). 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN TRAGEDY 195 

in all other respects. Indeed, Hughes far exceeds his 
predecessors in servile imitation. The poetry of Sack- 
ville and Norton is original, though their method and 
to some extent their ideas are borrowed; but Professor 
Cunliffe prints twenty-five solid pages of parallel pas- 
sages, wherein Hughes has cribbed the very words of 
Seneca.^ The Senecan chorus, messengers, and tricks 
of style remain, and "The Misfortunes of Arthur" 
agrees with "Gorboduc" in far outgoing Seneca in the 
observance of Horace's caution against the stage pre- 
sentation of gruesome incident ("De Arte Poetica," 
185-187). No sort of action occurs in view of the spec- 
tators, though the reports of chorus and nuntius reek 
with blood and horror. The dumb-shows in this play 
are of unparalleled complexity, and their designing ap)- 
pears to have absorbed the entire energies of three of 
the joint authors. The most remarkable thing about 
the altogether puerile and insipid piece is the distortion 
to which the great Arthurian story has been subjected 
in the effort to make it conform exactly to the Senecan 
model. The ghost of Gorlois prologizes like Seneca's 
ghost of Tantalus ("Thyestes"), and the whole ro- 
mance of the house of Uther, as well as all the heroism 
of Arthur's character, is flattened and dissipated by 
being dragged into agreement with the history of the 
house of Atreus, and treated as a vulgar narrative of 
transmitted sin. 

In addition to their constant discipleship to Seneca, 
the devotees of scholarly tragedy studied with some 
effect the practice of the Italian renaissance theatre. 
The ruling influence in Italian tragedy, as in English, 

' See J. W. Cunliffe, The Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan 
Tragedy. 



196 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

was Seneca, but a connection with Euripides existed 
in a work already mentioned, — Lodo\aco Dolce's free 
translation, through the medium of a Latin version, 
of the "Phoenissse" (1559). Dolce's play was entitled 
"Giocasta," and as "Jocasta" was translated into 
English by JGeorge Gascoigne and Francis Kinwel- 
mersh for presentation at Gray's Inn in 1566. The 
drama claims to be a rendering of the original Greek, 
"translated and digested into Acte"; but it follows 
Dolce throughout with the hap-hazard fidelity usual to 
sixteenth-century translations, only inserting before 
each act the dumb-shows which the English fashion of 
the time demanded, and appending an "Epilogus" by 
the same Christopher Yelverton who twenty years 
later took a hand in arranging the dumb-shows of " The 
Misfortunes of Arthur." 

The honors of courtly tragic innovation are equally 
divided between the two legal societies of Gray's Inn 
and the Inner Temple. To the credit of the former be- 
long among extant plays the Italianate work we have 
just been discussing and "The Misfortunes of Arthur," 
while for the Inner Temple the scale is precisely bal- 
anced by "Ferrex and Porrex" and the slightly later 
" Gismond of Salerne in Love," acted before the Queen 
in 1568. This last play dramatizes a well-known Italian 
story in accordance with the rules of Senecan tragedy. 
Like all the other existing specimens of the tj^se, it is 
the result of collaboration, five writers being in some 
way concerned in the performance. The most striking 
feature of "Gismond of Salerne" is the tendency to 
disregard the rule against the ocular presentation of 
horror and bloodshed, — a rule which Seneca had him- 
self several times broken, but which the cultivators of 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN TRAGEDY 197 

English classic tragedy ordinarily observed very punc- 
tiliously. The heroine here dies in the sight of the audi- 
ence, and the hero's heart is brought bleeding upon the 
stage, ^yllen Robert Wilmot, one of the original au- 
thors, came to revise the play for publication in 1591, 
it was entirely natural that he should considerably 
intensify these features, which the success of Kyd's 
tragedy and Marlowe's had then made the passion of 
the hour. 

By one of the striking ironies of literary history, the 
same year (1587) which presented before Queen Eliza- 
beth in "The Misfortunes of Arthur" the most inept 
probably of all the Senecan imitations, brought before 
the general London populace two plays that wrecked 
forever the prospects of English classical tragedy: 
Marlowe's "Tamburlaine" and Kyd's "Spanish Trag- 
edy." The latter play is, however, itself in large mea- 
sure the result of the working of Latin example, and 
its origin and influence will require discussion in this 
chapter. 

But the academic Senecan tragedy, though perma- 
nently severed by the developments of Kyd and Mar- 
lowe from the possibility of general influence on healthy 
dramatic evolution, persisted under altered conditions 
for twenty years longer in a curious group of eleven 
plays, all written probably in consequence of the im- 
pulse of a society whose president was the eccentric 
Lady Mary Sidney,^ Countess of Pembroke. Exclu- 
siveness was before all things the character of this 

^ It is a convention of long standing to refer to the lady by this 
name, which emphasizes her connection with her brother. Sir Philip. 
Technically, of course, her surname after 1377 was Herbert, by 
reason of her marriage to the Earl of Pembroke. 



198 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

circle, and its productions, though conducing in no 
respect to cathoHc or permanent results, form one of 
the most interesting backwaters which issue from the 
main dramatic current and finally disappear in the 
sandy waste of affectation. For a time there was about 
these literary exquisites a certain vigor and consider- 
able poetic freshness. 

The earlier patrons of classical tragedy had modelled 
their works either directly upon the plays of Seneca 
or upon Italian imitations. The Countess of Pembroke 
and her followers took as their pattern the French 
Senecan dramatist, Robert Gamier (1534-1590), whose 
eight plays (" Porcie," 1568 ; " Hippoly te," 1573 ; " Cor- 
n61ie," 1574; "Marc-Antoine," 1578; "La Troade," 
1578; "Antigone," 1579; "Les Juives," 1580; and 
"Bradamante," 1580) had already been repeatedly 
published both singly and in collected editions. The 
English school began unostentatiously with simple 
translation of the admired works. Lady Pembroke in- 
augurating the movement with her version of "An- 
tonie," executed in 1590 and published two years 
later. In 1594 Thomas Kyd produced a rendering of 
the "Cornelie," which he inscribed to the Countess of 
Sussex with the promise, presumably never fulfilled, 
of an immediate translation of another of Garnier's 
Roman tragedies, the "Portie." 

The differences between the tragedies of Seneca and 
the Franco -Latin plays which at this period were 
attracting the fastidious notice of the English blue- 
stockings are rather striking. Gamier, like most of the 
French classicists, made a point of outdoing his masters 
in all that pertained to correctness. The melodramatic 
sensationalism of the Latin poet — the feature which 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN TRAGEDY 199 

made him in a sense the father of EngHsh tragedy — is 
carefully pruned from the plays of Gamier. The ghost 
is banished as ill-bred; stage action, so far as it existed, 
carefully replaced by seemly moralizing and tedious 
narrative. The part of the chorus is increased and the 
lyric effect in every way intensified. Dramatic conflict 
and spectacular interest are refined away, and the 
plays affect the reader solely as collections of graceful 
elegiacs. A few lines from Cleopatra's speech at the 
opening of the fifth act of the "Antonie," which gives 
everywhere a very close rendering of Gamier 's French, 
will indicate the characteristic features of sentiment 
and expression: — 

" Chop. O cruell Fortune, o accursed lott ! 
O plaguy loue! o most detested brand! 
O wretched ioyes! o beauties miserable! 
O deadlie state! o deadly roialtie! 
O hatefull life! o Queene most lamentable! 
O Antonie by my fault buriable! 
O hellish worke of heau'n! alas! the wrath 
Of all the Gods at once on vs is falne !" 

The "Cornelie," which Kyd took upon himself to 
translate, is probably of all Garnier's plays the most 
deficient in dramatic incident. The entire interest is 
retrospective. Throughout the five acts Cornelia la- 
ments the death of her husband and her father, or 
bandies rhetoric with her consolers. Caesar and Mark 
Antony, Cassius and Brutus, are introduced in couples 
to give the work historical body, but there is no shred 
of plot. The number of characters on the stage in addi- 
tion to the chorus never exceeds two and is more fre- 
quently limited to one. The entire value of the piece 
is measured by the neat finish of the dialogue and the 



200 THE TUDOR DILVMA 

rhythmic beauty of the choral songs. There are few 
circumstances more striking when considered as curi- 
osities of hterature, or when seriously examined, more 
illustrative of the wavering dramatic ideals of the 
period, tlian the fact that the author who in 1587 
had achieved the tremendous popular success of "The 
Spanish Tragedy" should seven years later have pro- 
duced the version of the "Cornelia." The two v/orks 
are antipodal, and the existence of the earlier rendered 
the production of the other a mockery and labor lost. 
But the writer was far from realizing this, and the con- 
temporary status of the drama was such that he could 
slight, to all appearances, the great popular work and 
find cause of pride and profit in his humble adherence 
to an aristocratic whimsy. Instances like this sound a 
warning against depreciation of the academic drama. 
It is very likely that the subterranean influence of this 
superficially trivial and detached species was much 
more potent than now appears. 

In the same year in which Kyd's "Cornelia" ap- 
peared, Samuel Daniel, the greatest of the regular sup- 
porters of the school of Gamier, produced in the 
"Tragedy of Cleopatra" the finest play of this type. 
"Cleopatra" is not a rendering from the French, but 
a continuation in Garnier's style of the "Antonie," 
which Daniel's patroness had recently translated. In 
1598 an additional link in the chain of Antony and 
Cleopatra dramas was forged by Samuel Brandon, 
an obscure member of the same coterie; and in 1605 
Daniel published a second classical tragedy, drawn from 
Plutarch's Life of Alexander and entitled "Philotas." 
An interesting evitlence of the parallel development 
of academic tragedy in court and college circles is 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN TRAGEDY 201 

afforded by Daniel's kindly allusion to a play on the 
same subject as his own by his "deare friend D. Late- 
ware," which had been "presented in St. Johns Col- 
ledge in Oxford, where as I after heard, it was worthily 
and with great applause performed." 

Another member of the Sidney circle, Fulke Gre- 
ville. Lord Brooke, created a slight diversion in "Ala- 
ham " and " Mustapha," plays rigidly classical in form, 
but original in content, the subject being in the one 
ca.se the author's invention and in the other an adap- 
tation of oriental history. 

With this group of classical tragedies, all the fruit of 
the scholarly enthusiasm of a well-known social set, and 
all very probably composed during the last thirteen 
years of Elizabeth's reign, .should be considered four 
other plays written a couple of years later by the Scot- 
tish knight Sir William Alexander, afterward Earl 
of Stirling. Alexander's "Darius" (1603), "Croesus" 
(1604), "The Alexandra-an" (1605), and "Julius 
Caesar" (1607) were in the last year collected under the 
title of "Monarchicke Tragedies." Classical after the 
special manner of the French Senecans in the employ- 
ment of metre, chorus, and mes.senger, and frankly in- 
capable of public representation, these plays are prob- 
ably an echo from the northern half of Britain of the 
strain of aristocratic closet tragedy which Lady Pem- 
broke had introduced and Daniel established at the 
southern court. 

In the style of subjects treated a notable difference 
exists between the productions of the Franco-Latin 
school and the earlier imitative works of Sackville, 
Gascoigne, and Hughes. The taste for melodramatic 
horror is replaced by that interest in the romance of 



202 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

history which is in general one of the most striking 
literary characteristics of the age. On this one side the 
affected work of the disciples of Garnier voices the 
same taste which attracted to classic themes the two 
greatest dramatists of the time, Shakespeare and Jon- 
son. Of the eleven plays just mentioned, all except 
Greville's two original tragedies are based on ancient 
history and have for their acknowledged purpose the 
portrayal of actual figures and situations. Five deal 
with the great epoch of the Roman civil wars and 
present the mighty protagonists in that struggle : Julius 
Caesar, Antony, and Cleopatra. Three others concern 
the life of Alexander the Great. The cult of grisly an- 
cient myth, exploited by Seneca and his earlier English 
followers, is supplanted by the cult of Plutarch, every- 
where the strongest classical force in later Elizabethan 
drama. Thus, while adhering with all tenacity to the 
strictest Latin rules of structure, the academic tragedy 
had come to range itself in the choice of subject matter 
side by side with the popular drama. The inevitable 
contrast was forever fatal to the weaker type. Daniel's 
"Cleopatra," a poetic but essentially unactable pre- 
cursor of Shakespeare in the dramatization of Plu- 
tarch's "Antonius," suffered an eclipse which, though 
natural, was blacker and more permanent than the 
lyric merits of this very graceful piece deserved. Alex- 
ander's "Tragedy of Julius Csesar," with its prologue 
spoken by Juno, its chorus after each act, and its sub- 
stitution of the garrulous nuntius in lieu of stage action, 
fell still-born upon a world which for some seven years 
had been applauding a very different "Caesar." 

The close of Elizabeth's reign coincides roughly with 
the extinction of the academic type of classic English 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN TRAGEDY 203 

tragedy. By this time the genuinely useful features of 
the Senecan method had long been accepted by writers 
for the popular stage and assimilated into an organism 
possessed of capabilities far beyond the range of the 
strict Senecans. From the end of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, classic influence in tragedy ceases to mean Seneca 
or the Horatian rules, and comes to mean Plutarch, — 
especially Plutarch's Lives in North's translation. The 
important "Latin" plays of James's reign, if one may 
call them so even loosely, are the two of Ben Jonson 
and the three of Shakespeare. Jonson has a scholar's 
respect for the old laws of dramatic form, but in prac- 
tice he treats them with the independence of the crea- 
tive artist. In "Catiline's Conspiracy," he infuses a 
flavor of Seneca by admitting Sylla's ghost and the 
chorus; but in this play no less than in "Sejanus," the 
one great object and effect is not antiquarian correct- 
ness, but the convincing presentation of character in 
action. Shakespeare, entirely regardless of classic rule 
or precedent, romanticizes ancient history as he had 
already romanticized the English Chronicles. 

Thus far we have traced the course of Latin influence 
as it was exerted through the entire reign of Elizabeth 
upon a series of courtly and scholarly tragedies frankly 
artificial and remote from the line of popular develop- 
ment. The continued aloofness of these plays from 
general dramatic progress and their strict retention of 
the features of their Senecan model were conditioned, 
as has been said,* upon the failure during the first 
twenty-five or thirty years of Elizabeth's reign of any 
true feeling for tragedy in the competing native drama. 
Yet at the close of the period indicated, between the 
years 1585 and 1590, there rose into sudden preemi- 



204 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

nence several species of popular national tragedy, which 
more than any other single force created the "Eliza- 
bethan" dramatic outburst, and made tragedy during 
the next monumental quarter century the most vari- 
ous, powerful, and expressive of all stage forms. It will 
be the function of the remainder of this chapter and of 
that which follows to discuss the occasion and nature 
of this emergence of popular tragedy, — the most event- 
ful movement, probably, in the history of English 
literature. 

Of the several causes prerequisite to the growth of 
English national tragedy, the most indispensable was 
the example of the Latin tragic model. This model 
never received from popular playwrights the unreason- 
ing allegiance offered by the purely academic poets, 
but as the imitations of the latter and the general study 
of Seneca and Horace brought it into gradual famili- 
arity during the tragic period of incubation (1560-1585) 
it exerted a strong influence both in moulding form and 
in shaping public taste. The denial to the English popu- 
lace at the time of Elizabeth's accession of a proper 
feeling for tragedy does not, of course, infer absence of 
interest in the dramatization of serious stories. On the 
contrary, we have pointed out in the transitional inter- 
ludes of that period the constant search for new plot 
material, usually in the provinces of sober history and 
fable. However, the one desire of the public to which 
this species of drama catered wlis realistic excite- 
ment, and there was as yet no conception that such a 
demand could be satisfied by the steady development 
of a tragic theme to a tragic conclusion. Pure Sene- 
can tragedy, illustrated somewhat fitfully among the 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN TRAGEDY 205 

learned classes by plays like "Ferrex and Porrex," 
"Gismond of Salern," and "The Misfortunes of Ar- 
thur," was necessarily caviare to the general, lack- 
ing as it did the fundamental desideratum of stage 
action. No appreciation of the laws of dramatic tech- 
nique or of the difference between comedy and tragedy 
appears in the contemporary productions of the popu- 
lar stage. Such are "King Darius" (1565), R. B.'s 
"Tragicall Comedie of Apius and Virginia" (1563?), 
J, Pikering's "Interlude of Vice Concerning Horestes" 
(1567), John Phillip's "Commodye of pacient and 
meeke Grissill" (1565?), T.Preston's "Lamentable 
tragedy mixed full of pleasant mirth, conteyning the life 
of CambisesKingof Percia" (1569-1570); and the med- 
ley which Elizabeth's Master of the Chapel Children 
produced in accordance with the public taste, "Damon 
and Pithias." Most of these plays have been discussed 
in connection with the transitional interlude, and it is 
to that type that they all really belong. They make no 
division into acts or scenes, no attempt at consecutive 
plot development, and show no knowledge of the rules 
of modern dramatic art. The authors of these pieces 
were concerned, not to supplant the old moral drama, 
but merely to endue that outworn species with an ad- 
ventitious appeal by the addition of classic or romantic 
story. In complete opposition to the practice of the 
imitators of Seneca, the bloodiest incidents in the nar- 
ratives treated are selected for spectacular and some- 
times unimaginable staging. Virginius is instructed by 
a stage direction to tie a handkerchief about his daugh- 
ter's eyes and then strike off her head, which he imme- 
diately carries to Appius. Sisamnes is flayed on the 
stage "with a false skin," and in the same play ("Cam- 



*ii 



206 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

bises") Smirdis is provided with "a little bladder of 
vinegar," which when pricked at his murder may seem 
to exude blood. ^ 

These luridly sensational scenes, however, seldom 
form the pith of the plays in which they occur. Very 
often they are no more than excrescent ornaments. 
Whatever genuine dramatic material there may be is 
taken in nearly every instance from the old comic con- 
vention of the interlude; and the entire failure of all 
tlie plays of the " Cambises " type is the inevitable result 
of the effort at fusing elements essentially discordant. 
The nearest approach to tragedy is found perhaps in 
the play w^iich in title and subject matter promises 
least: Phillip's "Comedy of Patient Grissell." But 
here as elsewhere, though the title-roles are given to 
serious or even tragic figures, it is the native buffoonery 
of the interlude that holds the centre of the stage. The 
real hero, before whom the awkward lay-figures of king 
and tyrant seem colorless, is everywhere the vice: 
Haphazard in "Appius and Virginia," Ambidexter in 
"Cambises," Politic Persuasion in "Patient Grissell." 
In the most advanced play of the cla^s, "Damon and 
Pithias," — a work which on several sides shows kinship 
with the contemporary comedies, — the humorous ele- 
ment is of two kinds. Native clownage is represented 
by Grim the Collier and the two pages of Lylian type. 
Jack and Will : while in Carisophus, the parasite, is in- 
troduced a serio-comic figure from classical drama. 

The attempt made half-heartedlj' by the authors of 
these plays to graft a plot of classic gravity upon the 
amorphous stock of the native interlude was naturally 

• Cf. similar device in the Canterbury play of Th. a Rccketl, Repts. 
Royal Comm. Hist. MSS. 9 1, 148 f, cited by Creizonach, iii. 496. 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN TRAGEDY 207 

an artistic failure. Yet the works appealed notwith- 
standing to the broad public before which they were 
mostly performed, and they did much to foster a gen- 
uine, if for the present unreasoning, taste for tragic 
situation, intermingled with farce and romance. The 
" Cambises " vein persisted, and furnished Shakespeare 
with matter for unconscious imitation as well as laugh- 
ter. True English tragedy arose from a compromise 
between native and classic influences, and it arose 
largely in answer to the popular demand created by 
plays of the "Cambises" type; but it was not discov- 
ered in the path which those dramas blazed. Success- 
ful tragedy, when it came, resulted, not from the effort 
to pack a sensational story upon the slender and ill- 
articulated frame of the interlude, but from the thor- 
ough adaptation of the more resourceful Latin model 
to national uses and traditions. Transitional inter- 
ludes like "Cambises" prepared the public between 
1560 and 1580 to appreciate the stage presentation of 
grave worldly issues, and national tragedy emerged 
when plays of the general Senecan mould began to be 
adapted to suit the expectations of the democratic 
public thus created. 

One of the first popular English tragedies may well 
be "Locrine," though the revised version in which the 
play is preserved can hardly antedate 1591.^ This 
drama, the obvious work of a scholar, is formed upon 
the general lines of the academic Senecan tragedy, but 
it is developed in harmony with the tastes of a demo- 
cratic rather than a learned audience. The theme, like 

* Because of certain clear borrowings from Spenser's Complaints, 
published 1591. But the extant edition (1595) distinctly states the 
play to be "Newly set foorth, overseene and corrected." 



208 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

those of "Ferrex and Porrex" and "The Misfortunes 
of Arthur," is drawn from the mythical history of 
Britain, — a theme abounding in horror and bloodshed. 
Instead of the single ghost of "Thyestes," we have here 
two; and the favorite motives of Seneca — battle, 
murder, suicide, adultery, and domestic strife — are 
all repeated with the most lurid heightening. With the 
classicizing subject there goes no trace of the classical 
restraint : the utmost reaches of torment and atrocity 
are brought before the eyes of the spectators and exag- ~ 
gerated with every device of lyric declamation. The 
act and scene division of classic art is accompanied by 
a violation of the unities hardly less flagrant than that 
which Sidney fancifully portrays in his picture of the 
crudities of contemporary drama.' The action ranges 
wildly over the whole of Britain, and covers a full gen- 
eration. From the courtly tragedies, the author of 
"Locrine" has inherited the dumb-show, while in con- 
formity with the practice of popular drama he has 
introduced extended comic scenes, partly altogether 
anachronistic, partly cohering by only the slightest 
thread wnth the rest of the story. "Locrine" is neither 
an admirable nor even a reputable tragedy, but it 
shows more promise than any other which has been 
hitherto considered. It combines in its loose and 
tangled structure all the salient features of the native 
and the imported methods. It displaj'^s a healthy desire 
to present life frankly and freely, without exclusion 
either of comic or tragic incident, and in the way most 
impressive to the general spectator. It gives evidence 
of the availability of the materials of tragedy and indi- 
cates the existence of an untrained taste for tragic 
* Apologie for Poetrie, 52. 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN TRAGEDY 209 

entertainment. To make of it a tragedy in the true 
sense there was lacking only the selective and refining 
power of individual genius. 

This genius appeared in Thomas Kyd, by all odds 
the greatest benefactor of Senecan tragedy in England. 
Kyd found tragic drama an undomesticated stray, on 
the one hand barely keeping up a precarious existence 
in the fashionable shows produced at court and college; 
on the other hand waging a blind and losing battle on 
the popular stage against the vigorous comic tradition 
of the time. Since the first production of "The Spanish 
Tragedy," about 1587, the English equivalent of Sene- 
can melodrama has never lost its hold on vulgar au- 
diences. This play is in many ways a much truer rep- 
resentative of Seneca than confessed imitations like 
"Ferrex and Porrex." Kyd's dramatic eye seized at 
once the strong point of the Senecan type, — its power ' 
of arousing horror and excitement. By abandoning al- 
together the conventional practice of indicating action : 
at second hand through the mouths of messengers, and 
by supplanting the archaic mythological plot, which 
Norton and Hughes had endeavored vainly to resus- 
citate, by a modern theme of love and political in- 
trigue, Kyd was enabled to approach the nearer to the 
actual spirit of Latin tragedy. The chorus, the ghost, 
and the spectacular peculiarities of Senecan plot re- 
main; but they are vitalized by Kyd's manipulations 
till they reveal dramatic powers far beyond the vision 
of antiquarian reactionaries like Hughes, — far even 
beyond what Seneca himself perceived. The progeny 
of "The Spanish Tragedy" is infinite. "The Jew of 
Malta," "Titus Andronicus," and "Hamlet "are all, on 
one side, at least, its direct descendants; and what 



210 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

each of these owes to Kyd's play is precisely what the 
hitter had derived from the judicious imitation of 
Seneca. 

The "Tragedy of Blood," thus inaugurated by Kyd, 
depends for success upon the presentation of sensa- 
tional action in the development of a more or less 
consecutive plot. To this sensational interest — the 
characteristic feature of melodrama — all ethical and 
psychological aims are subordinated. The promise 
made by Revenge at the beginning of " The Spanish 
Tragedy " to the ghost of Andrea, — 

"Thou shall see the author of thy death, 
Don Balthazar, the Prince of Portingale, 
Depriu'd of life by Bel-imperia," — 

is recalled to the memory of the spectators at the end 
of each act; and it is the prosecution of this action, 
together with the parallel vengeance of Hieronimo for 
Horatio's murder, that furnishes the play with purpose 
and continuous interest through its four otherwise 
wandering acts. JMoral import is entirely without the 
scope of this type of drama; there is no thought of 
picturing the avengers as more amiable or more noble- 
minded than their victims. The tone of the play is 
frankly that of the vendetta, and the author accepts 
savage conditions as he finds them without essaying 
any interpretation of life's problems. 

Nor does "The Spanish Tragedy" seriously attempt 
the portrayal of individual character. With two excep- 
tions, the delineation of tlie figures is not only crude, 
but obviously careless and perfunctory, — the work of 
a man absorbed entirely in action and devoid of sym- 
pathy with the actors. Two characters in the play 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN TRAGEDY 211 

have, however, received Kyd's attention and possess 
distinctive traits, because in each case their portrayal 
offered opportunity for melodramatic effect. The treat- 
ment of Hieronimo's madness, glaringly unnatural as 
it is, made excellent stage business, and impressed itself 
ineradicably upon the contemporary public, furnishing 
the sub-title of the play in later printed editions,^ and 
the subject of the extensive interpolations ascribed to 
the pen of Jonson. The exploitation of insanity be- 
came, indeed, one of the marked features of Kydian 
tragedy, even outvaluing as a theatrical asset the in- 
herited Senecan ghost. 

In his portrayal of Lorenzo, Kyd manifests again an 
apparent interest in character, founded not upon psy- 
chological discernment, but upon his recognition of the 
spectacular possibilities of the type. Lorenzo is the 
first of a long line of Machiavellian villains, whose pop- 
ularity with a sensation-loving public was in no degree 
impaired by the palpable improbabilities and limita- 
tions in their presentment. He is the original progeni- 
tor of the villain of modern melodrama. In contrast 
with the great tragic heroes of Shakespeare, the species 
lost prestige; but when first introduced upon the stage, 
there was a zest hitherto inspired by no dramatic figure 
about this ardent devotee of policy who could "smile 
and smile and be a villain," — who, utterly soulless and 
heartless, could composedly intrigue out of his way the 
innocent obstacles to his ends, and, if necessary, could 
meet his own fate with a like egotistical composure. 
This is, of course, a low ideal of tragic character, born 
of the primitive philosophy that makes sang-froid and 

* In the 1615 (seventh) and subsequent editions, the title runs, 
"The Spanish Tragedie: Or, Uieronimo is mad againe." 



212 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

remorseless efficiency the justification of all guile; but 
its rich potentialities for thrilling action gave it on the 
untutored tragic stage an irresistible vogue. Its influ- 
ence was strong enough to cause Marlowe, who knew 
well a higher form of tragedy, to sacrifice the great 
psychological and poetic opportunity of his "Jew of 
Malta"; and in the figure of Young Mortimer it again 
introduced a coarse thread into the delicate character- 
ization of the same author's " Edward II." It was one 
of the determining factors that moulded the youthful 
work of Shakespeare, inspiring his Aaron in "Titus 
Andronicus," his Richard III, and Margaret of Anjou, 
and coloring deeply his whole idea of tragic character, 
till Marlowe's example and the experience of life taught 
him a purer art. Traces of the same conception of the 
hero- villain show themselves in "Hamlet," probably 
as a heritage from Kyd rather than from Shakespeare; 
and the type continues unchanged in the main char- 
acters of Chettle's "Hoffman," of Barnes's "Devil's 
Charter," of "Lust's Dominion," and "Alphonsus of 
Germany." 

Lorenzo indicates his character and that of the spe- 
cies to which he belongs in the words of his soliloquy 
concerning his servant-accomplices, Pedringano and 
Serberine (III, iii, 111-119): — 

"As for my selfe, I know my secret fault. 
And so doe they; but I have dealt for them. 
They that for coine their soules endangered, 
To saue my life, for coyne shall venture theirs: 
And better its that base companions dye. 
Then by their life to hazard our good haps. 
Nor shall they Hue, for me to feare their faith: 
lie trust my selfe, my selfe shall be my friend; 
For dye they shall, slaues are ordeined to no other end." 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN TRAGEDY 213 

The source of this crude conception of life and char- 
acter, which Kyd made one of the assets of cheap trag- 
edy, is to be found in the contemporary attitude toward 
the works of MachiaveUi, one of the most talked of 
writers of the age, and a particularly well-known figure 
on the stage. ^ It has been shown that the tenets of the 
Italian policist were most familiar in the exaggerated 
form in which they were represented by a French op- 
ponent. Innocent Gentillet. Gentillet's work, which 
by attacking the Satanic shrewdness and egotism of 
MachiaveUi 's doctrine, gave an enormous notoriety to 
the philosophy of the latter, was translated by Simon 
Patericke as early as 1577, and several times published 
under the title: "A discourse upon the Meanes of Well 
Governing and Maintaining in good Peace, a King- 
dom, or other Principality — Against Nicholas Machi- 
avell the Florentine." A passage from Patericke's 
Epistle Dedicatory will indicate the conception of 
Machiavellianism which this work disseminated : " For 
then Sathan being a disguised person amongst the 
French, in the likenesse of a merry ieaster [i. e., Rabe- 
lais] acted a Comoedie, but shortly ensued a wofull 
Tragedie. When our countriemens minds were sick, 
and corrupted with these pestilent diseases, and that 
discipline waxed stale; then came forth the books of 
Machiavell, a most pernicious writer, which began not 
in secret and stealing manner (as did those former 
vices) but by open meanes, and as it were a continuall 
assault, utterly destroyed, not this or that vertue, but 
even all vertues at once: Insomuch as it tooke Faith 
from the princes; authoritie and maiestie from lawes; 

* See the valuable dissertation of Edward Meyer, "MachiaveUi 
and the Elizabethan Drama," Liiterarhistorische Forschungen, I. 



214 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

libertie from the people, and peace and concord from 
all persons." The frank diabolism here attributed to 
the Florentine provided Kyd with an effective ready- 
made character for his intriguing prince, Lorenzo; and, 
in consequence of Kyd's successful employment, cre- 
ated a permanent stage type which long retained its 
popularity in the face of all efforts at psychological 
truth. 

"The Spanish Tragedy" virtually created a great 
deal of Elizabethan stage business. Depending alto- 
gether upon spectacular effect, in entire indifference 
to moral purpose and truth of characterization, Kyd 
raised tragedy at a single bound to a position decid- 
edly higher in vulgar favor than that occupied by the 
previously dominant comedy. " The Spanish Tragedy '* 
received and merited more both of popularity and of 
derision than any other play, probably, which the six- 
teenth century produced; and it was everywhere imi- 
tated. Besides his clever adaptation of Senecan con- 
vention to the taste of his time, and his creation of the 
stock types already referred to, Kyd inaugurated in 
this play a greater variety of plot devices which per- 
sisted in the later drama than can easily be enumer- 
ated. The idyllic garden scene between Horatio and 
Bel-Imperia, setting off the tragedy that environs it; 
the play within the play of the last act; the employ- 
ment of the dumb-show, no longer as a mere prelude, 
but as an integral part of the drama; ^ the dialogue of 
Andrea and Revenge, encompassing and interpreting 
the entire course of events; the carefully articulated 
sub-plot of Serberine and Pedringano, filling out and 
relieving with its grim humor the bleak horror of the 
1 Cf. Ill, XV. iS ff and MacU-tk, IV, i. 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN TRAGEDY 215 

main tragedy : each of these elements — the result of 
Kyd's quick sense of striking effect — passed into the 
common stock of the theatre, and repeated itself in 
numerous variations in the plays of Shakespeare and 
his contemporaries. 

The enormous success of "The Spanish Tragedy" 
inspired two other plays, which courted popularity by 
a treatment of the same themes. "The First Part of 
Jeronimo, With the Warre of Portugall, and the life and 
death of Don Andrjea" (1605) is a crude sketch of 
the antecedent history of the Spanish and Portuguese 
courts. The general appearance of plagiarism about 
this piece and the many contradictions in the presenta- 
tion of the main figures of the two plays show "Jeron- 
imo" to be almost certainly the effort of a theatrical 
hack to deck himself in borrowed glory. 

"The Tragedy of Solyman and Perseda" (1592.?), 
though published anonymously, and lacking decisive 
evidence of authorship, is now more generally accepted 
as Kyd's. It is an amplification into a five-act tragedy 
of the same story ^ which had previously furnished 
the material for Hieronimo's interpolated play; and it 
possesses considerable interest as showing how the in- 
novations of "The Spanish Tragedy" fared in later 
practice. "Soliman and Perseda" is a work of greater 
polish and much less originality than the earlier play, 
but it shows the same general characteristics. It is not 
at all surprising that Kyd should have exhausted his 
imagination in the prodigality of intrigue and inci- 
dent which mark his first play. The later effort has 

^ This story seems to have reached Kyd in Henry Wotton's 
Courtly Controversij of Cupid's Caufels (1578), a collection of five 
tales translated from the French of Jacques Yver. 



216 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

little of the uncouth energy of hmgiiage and action 
which made "The Spanish Tragedy" ridiculous to 
critics, but enormously influential. None of the serious 
characters in "Solinian and Perseda" possesses the in- 
terest which attaches to Ilicronimo and Lorenzo; yet 
the later play is obviously better balanced and ma- 
turer. Equally witJi the other it depends for its appeal 
upon the portrayal of physical action of a bloody and 
surprising nature; and its plot, though neatly worked 
out, is even more entirely a narrative of consecutive 
events, closely following its novelistic source, and lack- 
ing the unity which the figures of Andrea and Revenge 
give to "The Spanish Tragedy." The main superiority 
of " Solinian and Perseda " lies in the comic ^<<^Bes, where 
tlie humors of Piston and Basilisco, though quite con- 
ventional, arc well handled; and in an increased sanity 
throughout. By most rules, "Solinian and Perseda" 
should be a better play than its predecessor; but, in 
fact, it has hardly a tithe of the interest of "The Span- 
ish Tragedy," citlier for the critic or the reader. It is 
an instructive failure, marking clearly the superficial- 
ity and insipidity which were inherent in the melo- 
drama, but which the very fault of "The Spanish 
Tragedy" — its violent excess -^ served largely to 
disguise. Along the path which Kyd had outlined, no 
true advance in tragedj^ was possible. His first play, 
struck out wildly in the flush of invention, remained 
the best of its type; and in spite of its immense vogue 
and the enormous gain in dramatic technique which it 
accomplished, it proved to its closest imitators a very 
misleading guide. 

The reason for this is simple. Kyd brought within 
the range of tragedy all the forces by which an audi- 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN TRAGEDY 217 

ence might be moved, except only the portrayal of hu- 
man character. That lie entirely ignored. In conse- 
quence, the plays of Kyd's type betray their lack of 
this fundamental requisite of all healthy drama only 
the more clearly in proportion as they grow saner in 
other respects. The tragic form which Kyd, with gen- 
ius almost creative, had evolved from the Senecan tra- 
dition was for the present little more than an empty 
shell. In the case of "The Spanish Tragedy," the 
author tempered the barren coldness of his imaginary 
world by the artificial heat of lurid incident; but the 
human warmth which he did not find in Seneca he was 
not able to impart. It was only after Marlowe had 
breathed into tragedy the vital si)irit of psychological 
truth that the English theatre was prepared to develop 
effectively the technical form which Kyd had invented. 
The most immediate inheritors of the wealth of 
Senecan melodrama brouglit into currency by "The 
Spanish Tragedy" were the "Ur-IIamlet" and "Titus 
Andronicus," plays which abundantly shared with the 
older work both in the plaudits of the groundlings and 
in the derision of more refined tastes. The early "Ham- 
let" — unfortunately no longer extant in its original 
form — seems to have been written by Kyd himself 
about 1589. Even in the two greatly humanized and 
intellectualized versions of Shakespeare the parallelism 
with "The Spanish Tragedy" is continually forced 
upon the reader in the typically Kydian theme of all 
engulfing revenge, and in the s[)ectacular use of the 
ghost, the play within the play, and the manifold vari- 
ations of heroic insanity. Here also, as in "The Span- 
ish Tragedy" and nearly all the plays of its class, the 
mark of Seneca's over-reflective style stands conspicu- 



218 THE TUDOR DILV^IA 

oils in the penchant for extended soliloquy and self- 
analysis. 

"Titus Andronicus" is another drama in which tlie 
morbid craze for vengeance is traced through an orgy 
of undiscrimiuating slaughter. First printed in 1504, 
tlie tragedy is stilted to have been played sundry 
times by the companies of the Earl of Pembroke, the 
Earl of Derby (later the Lord Chamberlain's), and the 
Earl of Sussex. This advertisement links "Titus An- 
dronicus" with the second and tliird parts of "Henry 
M," which were likewise acted both by tlie Earl of 
Pembroke's Men and by those of the Strange-Derby- 
Chamberlain Company.^ Thus, it seems hkely that 
Shakespeare began his career as a tragic writer in 
"Titus Andronicus" precisely in the manner in which 
he began his concern with tlie history play : as the re- 
viser, that is, for his company's use of a striking but 
inartistic drama that had already- attained notoriety 
upon a different stage. 

Tlie peculiar strength and weakness of Senecan 
melodrama are well illustrated, perhaps, by the coin- 
cidence that four of the most conspicuous examples 
of the type, all belonging to the period 1590-1603, 
found their way into print only a generation or more 
after composition. That they should have remained 
extant for so long in tlieatrical archives, and at the end 
of that period have been still found worthy of revision 
and publication, shows tlie permanent hold which tliey 

1 The 1595 edition of The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, 
the earliest version of Henry VI. Pt. Ill, declares that play to have 
been ncteil by Lord Pembroke's Men, and the close connection of the 
True Tragedi/ with the earlier Fir.^t Part of the Contention makes it 
certain that the two dramas belonged to the same company. 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN TRAGEDY 219 

had upon vulgar fancy. On the other hand, the pub- 
hshers' previous neglect of plays so certainly notori- 
ous on the stage may not unjustly be ascribed to their 
obvious lack of psychological truth and literary polish. 

Of these four melodramas, "The Jew of Malta," 
Marlowe's only accepted production in the species, was 
written about 1590, and acted with extraordinary suc- 
cess by Henslowe's Company between 1592 and 1596. 
Though licensed for publication in 1594, no edition is 
known prior to 1633, when the tragedy was printed 
after having been revived both at the Cockpit Theatre 
and at Court. "Lust's Dominion, or The Lascivious 
Queen," was first published in 1657 as "A Tragedie 
Written by Christopher Marlowe, Gent." In its lurid 
picture of vice in high places, and in the portraiture of 
its hero-villain Eleazar, the Machiavellian Moor, this 
play is a companion-piece to "Titus Andronicus," by 
which it was probably suggested. The ascription to 
Marlowe seems to be unsupported by any evidence, 
and probably originated with the untrustworthy pub- 
lisher of the 1657 edition, Francis Kirkman. Collier 
identified "Lust's Dominion" with "The Spanish 
Moor's Tragedy" by Dekker, Haughton, and Day, 
mentioned in Henslowe's Diary for January, 1600, but 
it seems probable that the former piece took its first 
form a decade earlier. 

The very interesting melodrama " Alphonsus of Ger- 
many," published 1654, appears, like the plays just 
mentioned, to date from a period little subsequent to 
1590. Throughout this drama Machiavellianism is 
rampant in the schemes and character of the titular 
hero; and the old theme of revenge for a father presents 
itself anew in Alphonsus's dupe and fool, Alexander de 



•^^0 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Cyprus, together with many subordinate horrors and 
uxuch carefully coustructed machinery of plot and sub- 
plot. 

Chettle's "Hoffman," mentioned by Henslowe in 
IG02, is tlie fourth of these wild stage plays, which were 
destined to wait long for publication. It exists only in 
a text printed in 1681. Togetlier with Marston's con- 
temporary "History of Antonio and Mellida," in two 
parts, and tlie Shakespearean "Hamlet," it makes up a 
group illustrative of tlie vogue of the Senecan revenge 
play at the very close of the Tudor period. "Hamlet" 
is the link which binds this series to the earlier group 
of plays immediately inspired by "The Spanish Trag- 
edy." "Hamlet" is, furthermore, the only connecting 
medium between this entire brutal species and the per- 
manent interests of art and humanity. 

Senecan melodrama did not end with the reign of 
ElizabetJi. Perhaps it has never met a complete check. 
But in the plays which follow "Hamlet," the signifi- 
cance of the classic conntx'tion disappears, and a dififer- 
ent moral tone is perceiveil. Traces of the old spirit 
remain in "The Devil's Charter" by Barnabe Barnes 
(1()07), a fetid story of Bi^rgian crime and trickery, 
which hardly justifies the suggestion of supernatural 
agencies conveyed in the title; and in Chapman's "Re- 
venge of Bussy D'Ambois" (1010). In general, how- 
ever, the transition from what is, at worst, the honest 
bestiality of "The Spanisli Tragedy" and "Titus An- 
dronicus" to the insidious pessimism of Jacobean 
revenge plays like "The Revenger's Trageily " of Tour- 
neur (1007) arises from an opposition in taste that is 
fundamental and irreconcilable. 
,^ Even the Elizabethan popular expressions of tlie 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN TILVGEDY 221 

Seneca n influence, though exhahng a far less poisonous 
atmosphere than the terrible nuirder tragedies of >Yeb- 
ster and Tourneur, make woefully unexhilarating read- 
ing. They leave the student parched for a breath of 
imaginative sympathy or ideal nobility. Only in a 
single i)lay from the Senecan tradition does one find 
that flavor of romance and human sweetness which 
raises melodrama above sordidness. Naturally enough, 
it is in the tragedy of Shakespeare that stands inter- 
mediate in date between his slight retouching of the 
ghastly "Titus Andronicus" and his masterly trans- 
formation of the almost equally ghastly old "Hamlet" 
into an imaginati\e tragedy of quite different charac- 
ter. In the impression which it leaves upon the reader 
"Romeo and Juliet" is far removed from any of the 
plays we have discussed, but fimdamentally it belongs 
to the progeny of Senecan tragedy. The root idea of 
family feud, hardly less bitter than in the "Thebais" 
or "Titus Andronicus" ; tlie violent nature of the ac- 
tion and tremendous efi'usiou of blood, involving not 
only the immediate protagonists, but also such guiltless 
non-partisans as Mercutio and the County Paris, re- 
late the play organically to the "Spanish Tragedy" 
class. And the same relationship appears in the han- 
dling of the plot : in the elevation of passion above char- 
acter, and in the neglect of reason and ordered argu- 
ment in the pursuit of lyric declamation. Of course, 
tlie pure beauty of the main story, beside which even 
the love scenes between Horatio and Bel-Imperia seem 
gross and shallow, oavcs nothing to Seneca. So, it is an 
original reform of Shakespeare to contradict the dia- 
bolism toward which the species often tended, and out 
of evil still to find means of good, showing how the 



222 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

"star-crossed lovers ... Do with their death bury their 
parents' strife," and how the final result of all the tem- 
pest of passion is the reestablishment of amity and 
order. It is by reading "Romeo and Juliet" that one 
takes most pleasing leave of the classic-born tragedy of 
blood. This play shows little, to be sure, of the Mar- 
lovian soul-study which was already broadening and 
ennobling tragedy. Yet it is pervaded by a spirit 
equally rare, and it suggests that the key to the portal 
which leads from melodrama to true human tragedy 
lay perhaps not solely in the hands of Marlowe. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

GENERAL DISCUSSION 

Churchill, G. B. and Keller, W. : " Die lateinischen Univer- 

sitiits-Dranien Eiiglands iu der Zeit der Ktinigin Elizabeth," 

Sh. Jh. xxxiv (1898). 
Cunliffe, J. W. : '♦ The Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan 

Tragedy," London, 1893. 
" Italian Prototypes of the Masque and Dumb Show," 

Publ. Mod. Lang. Ass., xxii (1907), 140-156. 
Fischer, R. : " Zur Kuustentwicklung der englischen Tragodie 

von ihreu ersteu Anfiingen bis zu Shakespeare," Strassburg, 

1893. 
Moorman, F. W. : " The Pre-Shakespearean Ghost," 3fod. 

Lang. Review, i (1906). 
Thorn dike, A. H. : " Tragedy," Types of English Literature 

Series, 1908. 
" The Relations of Hamlet to Contemporary Revenge 

Plays," Publ. Mod. Lang. Ass., xvii (1902), 125-220. 

INDIVIDUAL TEXTS 

I. Elizabethan Translations of Classic Tragedy 

Seneca : His Tenne Tragedies, translated into Englysh, 
1581. (By various hands ; edited by Thomas Newton.) i?e- 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN TRAGEDY 223 

printed, Spenser Society, vols, xliii, xliv, 1847. Discussion : E. M. 
Spearing, " The Elizabethan ' Tenne Tragedies of Seneca,' " 
Mod. Lang. Review, iv (1909), 437-461. Individual editions. 
Seven of the translations included above were published 
separately, viz. : Troas (1559), Thyestes (1560), and Hercules 
Furens (1561) by Jasper Heywood ; Oedipus (1563) by 
Alexander Nevyle ; Agamemnon (1566) and Medea (1566) by 
John Studley ; Octavia (n. d.) by T. N(uce). The three 
other plays, first included in the 1581 edition, are : Hippolytus 
and Hercules (Etceus by John Studley and Thebais by Thomas 
Newton. The translation of a choral passage in Hercules 
(Etceus by Queen Elizabeth is extant in MS., and was printed 
in Anglia, xiv (1892), 346-352. 
Euripides : Iphigenia at Auiis. MS. translation by Lady 
Lumley in Brit. Mus. Printed G. Becker, Sh. Jb. xlvi 
(1910) ; Malone Society. [Gascoigne's and Kinwelniersh's 
Jocasta, though claiming to be a translation from the Greek 
of Euripides (Phcenissce}, does not really merit inclusion under 
this head. See below, p. 224 f .] 

II. Academic and Amateur Tragedies showing Senecan 
Influence 

a. academic tragedies directly influenced by SENECA 

Norton, Thomas, and Sackville, Thomas. Ferrex and 

Porrex. The text survives in two forms: — 

(a) Pirated edition : " The tragedie of Gorboduc, whereof 
three Actes were wrytten by Thomas Nortone, and the 
two laste by Thomas Sackvyle. Sette forthe as the 
same was shewed before the Queues most excellent 
Maiestie, in her highnes Court of Whitehall, the .xviij. 
day of January, Anno Domini 1561 (1562). By the 
Gentleman of Thynner Temple in London." 1565. Re- 
printed, 1590, as appendix to Lydgate's " Serpent of 
Deuision. Wherein is conteined the true History or 
Mappe of Romes ouerthrowe." 

(6) " The Tragidie of Ferrex and Porrex, set forth \<rithout 
addition or alteration but altogether as the same was 
shewed on stage before the Queenes Maiestie, about 
nine yeares past, vz. the xviij. day of lanuarie. 1561. 



224 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

by the pcntlcmcn of the Inner Temple." n. d. (ca. 
1570) FiU'siuiilo, Kurmer, 1SH)8. licpriittcd, Dixhley, all 
edd. except liazlitt's ; T. Iliiwkins, Ori(jin of the Eng- 
lish Drama, ii, 1773; Ancient Jiritish Drama, \, 1810; 
W. 1). Cooper, Shakespeare Societi/, xxxvi, 18-17 (with 
Jialph Roister Doister) ; K. W. Sackville-West, The 
Works of 7Tiomas Sackville, 1859 ; L. T. Smith, Engl. 
Sprach- u. Litteraturdeukmale, i, 1883 ; Maidy, Sped- 
metis, ii, 1897 ; il. S. Farmer, Dram. Writings of Ed- 
vmrds, Norton, Sachville, 1906. 
Discussion : L. 11. Courtney, " The Tragedy of Ferrex and Por- 
rex," Notes and (^ufnV.s-, 'Jd Series, x (18(50), 2(51-203 ; F. Koch, 
" Ferrex and Porrex," Halle, 1881; E. Koeppel, "Beitriige 
ziir Ciesehichte des elizabethanischen Dramas," Engl. Stud., 
xvi (1892), 357 f; F. Liebermann, Herrig's Archiv, ovi (1899) ; 
H. Schmidt, " Seneca's InHuence upon Gorboduc," Mod. 
Lang. Notes, ii (1887), 56-70. 
HuGHK8, Thomas, and others. The Misfortunes of Arthur. 
Published in an octavo pamphlet entitled " Certaine deuises 
and showes presented to her Maiestie by the Gentlemen of 
Grayes-Iune at her llighnesse Court in (treenewich, the 
twenty-eighth day of Febrnarie in the tliirtieth yeare of her 
Maiesties most happy Kaigne," 1587. luprinted, J. P. Collier, 
1828. Hazlitt, Dodslei/, iv, 1874 ; II. C. Grumbine, Litterar- 
hi.'<torische Forschungen, xiv, 1900. Discussion : J. W. Cunliffe, 
"Imitations of Seneca in The Misfortunes of Arthur," Ap- 
pendix II to The Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy, 
1893. 

B. ITALIANATE SBINECAN TRAGEDIES 

Gascoigne, George, and Kinwelmersh, Francis. Jocaata. 
"A Tragcdie written in Greke by Euripides, translated and 
digested into Acte by George Gascoygne, and Francis Kiu- 
welmershe of Grayes Inne, and there by them presented, 
15(56." (Really translated from the Italian of Dolce.) MS. 
version in Hrit. Mus. Printed with title as above in Gascoigne's 
" Ilundreth sundrie Flowres," 1573. Reprinted in "The 
Posies of George Gascoigne," 1575 ; (xascoigne's Works, 1587; 
¥. J. Child, " Four Old Plays," 1848 ; W. C. Hazlitt, 1869; 
J. W. Cuulifi'e, *' Supposes aud Jocasta," Belles Lettres ed., 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN TRAGEDY 225 

190G ; Works of Gascoigne, i, 1907. Discussion : M. T. W. 
Fcirster, "Gascoigiie'sJocasta: a Translation from the Italian," 
Mod. Phil., i (1903-04), 14G-150 ; F. E. Schelling, " Three 
Unique Elizahethan Dramas," Mod. Lung. Notes (1892); in- 
corporated in "The Life and Writings of George Gascoigne," 
1893. 
Wri.MOT, Robert, and others, Gismond of Salem. Extant 
in two forms: — 

(a) Three MS. versions giving the text acted at the Inner 

Temple ahout 15G7. MS. Lansdowne 780: reprinted A. 
Brandl, with variant readings of MS. llargrave 205, 
Quellen u. Forschungen, 1898. 

(b) Revised text prepared for publication by Wilmot twenty- 

four years after the original performance. Printed as 
" The Tragedie of Tancred and Gismund. Compiled 
by the Gentlemen of the Inner Temple, and by them 
presented before her Maiestie. Newly reuiued and pol- 
ished according to the decorum of these dales. By R. 
W." 1591. Reissued 1592. Reprinted, Dodsley, all edd. 
Discussion: J. W. Cunliffe, "Gismond of Salerne," 
Publ. Mod. Lang. Ass., xxi (1900), 435-401 ; C. Sher- 
wood, " N. E. liearbeitungen der P^rzahlung . . . von 
Gbismonda ..." 

C. TRAGEDIES OF FRANCO-LATIN INFLUENCE 

Sidney, Lady Mary, Countess of Pemhroke, Antonius. "A 
Tragcedie written ... in French by Ro. Garnier . . . done in 
English," 1592 (with " A Discourse of Life and Death "). 
Another edition, 1595. Reprinted, Alice H. Luce, Litterarhis- 
torische Forschungen, iii, 1897. 

Kyd, Thomas : Cornelia, 1594. Re-issued, 1595, with ex- 
panded title : " Pompey the Great, his faire CorneliEes Trage- 
die . . . Written in French, Vjy that excellent Poet Ro : Gar- 
nier ; and translated into English by Thomas Kid." Reprinted, 
Dodsley, all edd. ; H. Gassner, 1894. 

Danikl, Samukl. Works, ed. A. li. Grosart, 5 vols., JIutli Li- 
brary, 1883-90. Cleopatra. Printed in " Delia and Rosa- 
mond augmented," 1594 (2 edd.), 1595, 1598 ; "The Poet- 
icall Essayes of Sam. Danyel," 1599 ; "The Works of Sam- 
uel Daniel," ICOl, 1002 ; " Certaiue Small Poems Lately 



226 ' THE TUDOR DRAINIA 

Printed : with the Tragedio of Philotas. Written by Samuel 
Daniel," 1005; "Certain Small Woikes Heretofore Di- 
vnlged by Samuel Daniel," 1607, 1611; "The Whole 
Workes of Samuel Daniel Esquire in Poetrie," 1623 ; re- 
printed as " Drammaticke Poems," 1635 ; Materialien, xxxi. 
Philotas. Printed in the 1605 edition of Daniel, and in the 
later edd., as mentioned above. Separately published, " The 
Tragedie of Philotas. By Sam. Daniel," 1607. 
Brandon, Samuel, "The Tragicomcedi of the vertuous Octa- 
via," 1598. Reprinted, Malone Society, 1910. 

D. CLASSICIZING TRAGEDIES SHOWING ORIGINAL VARIATIONS FROM 

THE CONVENTIONAL FORMS 

Greville, Fulke, Alaham and Mustapha. Both included in 
"Certaine Learned and Elegant Workes of the Riglit Hon- 
orable Fulke Lord Brooke, Written in his Youth," 1633. 
Reprinted, A. B. Grosart, Fuller Worthies Librari/, 1870. " The 
Tragedy of Mustapha" was printed separately, 1609. Dis- 
ciumon ': M. W. Croll, " The Works of Fulke Greville," 1903. 

Alexander, Willi.\m, Earl of Stirling. Collected editiotis: 
" The Monarchick Tragedies " ( Crivsus and Darius only), 
1604 ; " The Monarohiuke Tragedies ; Crcesus, Darius, the 
Alexandrean, lulius Civsar, Newly enlarged," 1607 ; reprinted 
'• third edition," 1616 ; " Recreations with the Muses," 1637 ; 
" Poetical Works," 3 vols., 1870-72, " The Tragedie of Da- 
rius " published separately, 1603. Discussion : H. Beumelberg, 
" Sir William Alexander, Graf von Stirling ..." 1880. 
[With this group are related Ben Jonsou's Roman tragedies : 
Sejaiius his Fall (l(>0o) and Catiline his Conspiracy 
(1611). Jonsou's plays, however, are not properly academio 
or amateur.] 

III. Popular Tragedies influenced by Classic Precedent 

Locrine. " Newly set foorth, ouerseene and corrected, By W. S." 
1595. Reprinted 1734 (two issues); Malone Societi/, 1908. (For 
editions of this play in the third and fourth Shakespeare Fo« 
lios and in later collections of accepted or supposititious worKS 
of Shakespeare, see lite Shakespeare Apocrypha, 1908, 442, 
443.) 

KvD, Thomas. Works, ed. F. S. Boas, 1901. General Discussion: 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN TRAGEDY 227 

J. Le Gay Brercton, " Notes on the Text of Kydd," Engl. 
Stud., xxxvii (1907), 87-90; C. Crawford, " A Concordance of 
the Works of Kyd," Materialien, xv, 190G; K. Markscheflel, 
"Thomas Kyd's Traffiidien," 1885; G. Sarrazin, "Thomas 
Kyd und sein Kreis," 1892; J.Scliick, "Thomas Kyd's Todes- 
jahr," Sh. Jb. xxxv (1899), 277-280 ; O. Michael, " Der Stil 
in Thomas Kyd's Originaldramen," 1905. 
The Spanish Tragedy. Earliest edition extant undated: 
" Newly corrected, and amended of such grosse faults as 
passed in the first impression." Reprinted 1594. Ten other 
editions previous to the end of 1G.33 are known. (See Greg's 
List.) Reprinted, Dodsley, all edd.; T. Hawkins, " Origin of 
the English Drama," ii, 1773 ; Ancient British Drama, i, 
1810 ; J. M. Manly, Specimem, ii, 1897; J. Schick, Temple 
Dramatists, 1898; Litterarhistorische Forschungen, xix (1901). 
Discussion: W. Bang, "Kyd's Si)anish Tragedy," Emjl. 
Stud., xxviii, 229-234; G. O. Fleischer, " liemerkung en 
iiber Kyds Spanish Tragedy," 189G ; J. A. Worj), " Die 
Fabel der Spanish Tragedy," Sh. Jh. xxix, xxx (1894) ; R. 
Schonwerth, " Die niederUlndischen . . . liearbeitungen von 
Th. Kyd's Spanish Tragedy," Lit. Forschungen, xxvi, 1903. 
Soliman and Perseda. Three issues of 1599 and an un- 
dated ed. known. Reprinted, Th. Hawkins, Origin of the 
English Drama, ii, 1773; Hazlitt, Dodsley, v. Disaission: 
E. Koeppel, " Beitriige zur geschichte des elizabethanischen 
dramas," Engl. Stud., xvi (1892); G. Sarrazin, "Der ver- 
fasser von Soliman and Perseda," Engl. Stud., xt (1891), 
250-2G3. [The lost Ur-Hamlet of ca. 1589 was probably 
written by Kyd. Cf . J. Allen, " The Lost Hamlet of Kyd," 
Westminster Review, 1908 ; J. Corbin, "The German Hamlet 
and Earlier English Versions," Harvard Studies, v, 189G ; 
W. Creizenach, Mod. Phil., ii (1905); W. Creizenach, " Die 
vorshakespeare'sche Hamlettragiklie," SA. Jb. xlii (1900); 
J. W. Cunliffe, " Nash and the Earlier Hamlet," Publ. Mod. 
Lang. Ass. (190G); A. S. Jack, Publ. Mod. Lang. Ass., xx 
(1905); M. W. MacCallum, " The Authorship of the Early 
Hamlet," Furnivall Miscellany, 1901 (xxxi, p. 282 ff); K. 
Meier, Dresdner Anzeiger, Mar., 1904 ; G. Sarrazin, " Die 
Entstehung der Hamlet-Tragiidie," Anglia, xii, xiii (1890, 
1891); C. M. Lewis, "The Genesis of Hamlet," 1907.] 



228 TIIE TUDOR DRAMA 

The First Part of Jeronlmo. •' With tlio W.irros of Por- 
tiigall, and (ho life and douth of Don AndraNi," 11)05. lie- 
printed, Dodslcy, all cdd. ; Ancient ]>ritish Drama, i, 1810. 
J^iscussion: J. E. Routh, Mod. Lang. Notes, xx (11H)5). 
(This play has been asoribod, doubtless incorrectly, to Kyd.) 

Maulowk, CuuiSToriiKK: The Jew of Malta, 1G33. lieprinted 
in all editions of Marlowe, in Heed's and Collier's Dodsley, 
vol. viii ; W. Oxberry, 1818 ; A. AVao-ner, 1889. 

Titus Aiidronicus. Written, probably, by an unidentiBed 
author, and retouched by Shakespenre. Printed 1594, ICOO 
(Faosiniile E. W. Ashbee, 18(U>, C. rrnotorins, 188(5), IGll 
(Kaosiniile E. W. Ashbee, 18G7). Reprinted Shakespeare 
Folio, 1(V_*3 and later editions. 

Lust's Domiuioii, " Or, The Lascivious Queen. A Tragedie. 
Written by Cliristopher Marlowe, Gent.," 1G57. Reprinted 
Robinson's edition of Marlowe, iii, 1820. 

Alphonsiis, Emperor of Germany. " By George Chapman 
Gent.," 1(>54. Ueprinted, K. Elze, 1807; T. M. Tarrott, «' The 
Tragedies of George Chapman," 1910. 

Makston, tloHN : Antonio and Mellida. Two parts : " The 
History of Antonio and Mellida. The first part," " Antonios 
Reuenge. The second part." Both printed 1002. Reprinted in 
Marston's I'ragedies and Ct)»JC(f /< .<, W,\3 (two issues) ; H'orA's, 
ed. llalliwoU, 1850 ; ed. A. R. Grosart, 1879 ; A. H. Bullen, 
1887. 

Chkttlk, Henry : Tragedy of Hoffman, " Or A Reuenge 
for a Father," 1031. Reprinted, II. B. L(oonard), 1852 ; 
R. Ackermann, 1S94. Discttssion : N. Delius, "Chettle's 
lIoiYman und Shakspere's Hamlet," Sh. Jh. ix (1874), 
100-194. 

Barnks, Barnake : The Devil's Charter, " A Tragaedie 
Contoiuing the Life and Poath of Pope Alexander the sixt. 
As it was plaid before tlio Kings ^laiestie, Vpon Candlemasse 
night last : by his Maiesties Seruants," 1007. Reprinted, R. 
B. McKerrow, Jifaterialien, vi, 1904. Discus.fion : A. E. H. 
Swaen and G. B. IMoore Smith, '* Notes ou the Devil's 
Charter," ^rod. Lam]. Review, i (1900), 122 flP. 

ToruNKUR, Cyril : The Atheist's Tragedy, " Or The honest 
Man's Heuenge," 1011, 1012. The Revenger's Tragedy, 
1007, 1008. Both reprinted in Tourneur's iri)/A>', ed. .1. C. 



CLASSICAL INFLUENCE IN TRAGEDY 229 

Collins, 1878 ; Mermaid edition of Webster and Tourneur, 
J. A. Symorids, 1888. 
Chai'MAN, Gkokge : Biissy D'Ambois, 1C07. Five other issues 
before the end of JCoT. The Revengeof Buasy D'Ambois, 
IGl.'}. Both reprinted in editions of Chapman's W(jrks ; 
W. L. Phelps, Mermaid ed. ; T. M. Tarrott, Tragedies of 
Chapman, 1910. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE HEROIC PLAY 

It is necessary to look far into the past in order to 
trace the uHimate source of the dramatic current 
which during the last fifteen years of EHzabeth's reign 
blended with the influences already considered, and 
preserved tragedy from barren sensationalism by 
teaching it the value of the individual personality. 
Coeval with the beginnings and earliest development 
of tJie regular stage under religious auspices, there had 
existed an entirely popular species of quasi-dramatic 
entertainment, much less definite in form and less rich 
in evolutionary possibilities, but even more firmly in- 
grained in tlie life of the nation, and deep rooted in 
hoariest antiquity. This incipient communal drama 
foimd expression through such questionable media as 
the village dance, the choral song, and the ballad, but 
retained its dramatic germ tenaciously from the pagan 
sword dance to the latest degenerate survivals in 
seventeentli and eighteenth century hamlets. ^lost 
commonly it dealt with the celebration of heroic qual- 
ities and lauded individual prowess, sometimes that 
of mythical warrior -deities, sometimes of historical 
or semi-historical characters like Percy and Douglas, 
Robin Hood or Sir Gawain. 

The fifteenth century, the period of the highest 
development and broadest diffusion of tlie religious 
drama, evolved concurrently, as its other most char- 
acteristic literary product, the great volume of ballad 



THE HEROIC PLAY 231 

poetry, which treated, for the most part, the popular 
figures of legend or romance in a form always verging 
upon the dramatic. Certain extant fragments of the 
time even show the particular ballad hero, Robin Hood, 
to have been the subject of real plays which depicted 
his character and feats in a manner identical at all 
points with that of the ballads.^ All this literature 
implies the existence among the common people of 
England at the beginning of the Tudor period of a 
strong interest in the crudest form of character por- 
trayal; that is, in the delineation of a well-known figure 
in the performance of deeds too simple and familiar 
to distract the attention by reason of either novelty 
or intricate plot manipulation. This interest contin- 
ued unabated among the vulgar, in spite of the gibes 
and attacks of more progressive critics, till after the 
reign of James I; and its vitality is attested, not only 
by the numerous hostile allusions, but by the stupen- 
dous output of low-priced chapbooks and ballads 
recording the adventures of popular figures like Guy 
of Warwick, Valentine and Orson, and the Arthurian 
heroes. 

The general craving thus indicated was mainly 
satisfied during the ascendancy of the religious play 
and the interlude by means of verse and prose narra- 
tive rather than the drama; but it was largely a dra- 
matic instinct, and in the end it affected the stage 
both for good and ill. Undoubtedly, it was this taste, 
implanted in the body of the people, which kept alive 
the desire for serious popular drama during the long 

^ Two such works are reprinted in Manly' s Specimens of the Pre- 
Shaksperean Drama, vol. i, 279 £f, and in the Malone Society 
"Collections," part ii (1908). 117 ff. 



232 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

reign of almost unmixed farce, and it was the same 
taste which refused to be satisfied with the imported 
Senecan tragedy of plot intrigue alone, and restricted 
Senecan imitation for some thirty years to the learned 
amateur stage. On the one hand, this state of literary 
interest did much to raise Elizabethan drama supe- 
rior to the petty cult of novelty and to give it one of 
its clearest lines of contact with Athenian tragedy in 
its sane presentation of great characters and events, 
untrammelled by the shame of plagiarism or triteness. 
The same influence operated disadvantageously, how- 
ever, in encouraging a very cavalier attitude among 
the popular dramatists towards the virtues of unity 
and formal regularity in plot construction. It gave an 
epic tinge to much of the drama of the day, impelling 
the writers to cut their material lineally rather than 
transversely, and thus substitute for the full and bal- 
anced treatment of the story's climax a rambling epi- 
sodic chronicle of incidents. It tended normally to 
promote the glorification of the central figure and the 
neglect of all others. 

The general appetite for narratives of popular 
heroes, to which the ballads of the fifteenth century 
largely ministered, was further fed at the close of that 
period by adapting to the vulgar taste the romance 
of chivalry, once an essentially aristocratic species of 
literature, now fallen somewhat into disrepute. The 
great period of chivalrous romance came to a long 
deferred end with Malory, who summed up in prose 
what had centuries before been written in verse and 
said what should perhaps have been the last word upon 
the Arthurian story. The success of the "Morte 
d' Arthur," however, called forth numerous imitations. 



THE HEROIC PLAY 233 

and gave renewed life among the populace to a liter- 
ary genre which as a courtly type had long arrived at 
senility. Among the host of works thus recalled into 
vogue, two deserve particular notice: "Huon of Bor- 
deaux," rendered from the French by Lord Berners, 
the translator of Froissart, during the reign of Henry 
VIII, and the enormously famous "Amadis of Gaul," 
of which one Elizabethan version is the work of the 
dramatist Anthony Munday.^ 

This kind of fiction maintained itself by no fresh- 
ness or skill in narrative, but merely by the portrayal 
in crude outline of some stupendous central figure. 
In the appreciation of critics whose taste was being 
chastened alike by the ideals of classical restraint and 
by Puritan morality, such vulgar stories steadily lost 
caste, till they came to be regarded as emblematic of 
all that was low and inartistic in literature. ^ Yet we 
have overwhelming evidence, not only for the undi- 
minishing appeal of this style of narrative with the 
rude public to which it mainly catered, but also for 
the important fact that the rough dramatizations of 
such hero-stories formed during two thirds of Eliza- 
beth's reign the chief source of popular serious drama. 
In a well-known passage of his "Schoolmaster," 
Roger Ascham records his hostility to the type of 
fiction represented by the "Morte d' Arthur" and the 
ballads as well as to the newer vogue of the Italian 
novel. The judgment of Gosson and Meres, both 

I ^ An earlier translation by T. Paynell had appeared in 1567. 

^ Note, for example, Ben Jonson's hit at "The Knight of 
the Sun" in Cynthia's Revels (III, iii), and at the "Arcadia" in 
Bartholomew Fair (IV, ii) and Every Man Out of his Humor 
(II. i). 



234 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

classicists and Puritans, is to the same effect, and 
bears the same witness to the strength of the repro- 
bated fashion. Writing in 1579, Gosson declares: "I 
may boldly say it because I have seen it, that 'The 
Palace of Pleasure,' 'The Golden Ass,' 'The Ethio- 
pian History,' 'Amadis of France,' and 'The Round 
Table ' . . . have been thoroughly raked to furnish the 
playhouses in London." 

And Francis Meres, with equal emphasis on the 
moral side of the question, gives a catalogue of titles 
of the offending literature comparing interestingly 
with the great collection of similar works which the 
bourgeois Captain Cox of Coventry is known to have 
made. Meres writes in a section of his " Palladia 
Tamia"(1598) dealing with the "Reading of bookes": 
"As the Lord de la Nonne in the sixe discourse of his 
politike and military discourses censureth of the bookes 
of 'Amadis de Gaule,' wh. he saith are no lesse hurt- 
full to youth then the workes of Michiauell to age : so 
these bookes are accordingly to be censured of, whose 
names follow: 'Beuis of Hampton,' 'Guy of War- 
wicke,' 'Arthur of the Round Table,' *Huon of Bor- 
deaux, ' ' Oliuer of the Castle,' ' The Foure Sonnes of 
Aymon,' ' Gargantua,' ' Gireleon,' ' The Honour of Chiu- 
alrie,' 'Primaleon of Greece,' 'Palmerin de Oliua,* 'The 
7. Champions,' 'The Myrror of Knighthood,' 'Blanch- 
erdine,' 'Meruin' [Merhn ?], ' How^leglasse ' [TillEulen- 
spiegel], the stories of 'Palladyne' and 'Palmendos,' 
'The Blacke Knight,' 'The Maiden Knight,' 'The 
History of Cselestina,' ' The Castle of Fame,' 'Gallian 
of France,' 'Ornatus and Artesia,' etc." 

In his list of sources of contemporary popular drama 
quoted above, Gosson adds to the typical cycles of the 



THE HEROIC PLAY 235 

Round Table and Amadis and the not altogether dis- 
similar sentimental romance of the late Greek Helio- 
dorus the collections of stories, often unedifying, in 
Apuleius's "Golden Ass," and Painter's "Palace of 
Pleasure." It was works like the first three of these 
which lent to Elizabethan drama many of the features 
to be considered in this chapter. The great bulk of 
English popular drama, prior to 1587, which was not 
farce, seems to have belonged to this pseudo-chivalrous 
convention; and the playwrights dealt the more freely 
with their material by reason of the decadence of the 
heroic romance as an art form. It would, of course, 
be absurd to suppose that the drama could learn any 
truth of human character from the ridiculous figures 
that strut through the vulgarized romances of the day. 
Yet this weak and dying species left to the plays formed 
out of it certain conventional types of personality, 
infinitely rude and coarse, which were freely incor- 
porated and gave the resultant dramas their chief 
interest. They were little more than lay figures; but 
they held the eyes of the audiences, carried on the 
action, and declaimed the tremendous speeches, giv- 
ing dramatists and people their first glimpse of tragic 
character, and creating the conditions which later 
made it possible for Marlowe to replace them by 
figures of flesh and blood. " Tamburlaine " is the clas- 
sic instance of chivalrous romance turned drama, or 
rather "Tamburlaine" would be if we could detach 
its constituent machinery from the web of lyric passion 
in which the poet has enshrouded it. What Seneca was 
to Kyd, the heritage of romantic legend may be said 
to have been to Marlowe; and it chanced by the bless- 
ing of fate that each of these masters forged simul- 



236 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

taneously from his little-promising material one of the 
two indispensables of tragedy : plot and character. 

The vast niajoritj^ of the plays roughly manufac- 
tured out of tales of knightly adventure during the 
jSrst thirty years of Elizabeth's reign have certainly 
perished. Frankly artless as they were in form and 
ephemeral in purpose, it is surprising that any should 
liave found their way into jirint, and the few that do 
survive doubtless owe that distinction to a degree of 
sophistication imusual to the general type. 

The fairest example of the species is a work entitled 
"The Historic of the two valiant Knights, Syr Clyo- 
mon Knight of the Golden Sheeld, sonne to the King 
of Dcnmarke: And Clamydes the wliite Knight, sonne 
to the King of Suavia." This anonymous production, 
published in 1599, but probably a score of years older, 
was formerly ascribed very unreasonably to George 
Peele, and has been lately attributed on purely specu- 
lative grounds to Thomas Preston, the author of " Cam- 
bises," ' Here, through the tetlious length of one hundred 
and forty pages of hobbling rime, are presented, with the 
intricate formlessness characteristic of the later prose 
romance, the adventures of the two titular heroes in 
pursuit of love and honor. Their wanderings bear 
them tlirough a strange world, ruled in chief by no less 
a nu^narch than King Alexander the Great, — a world 
which includes besides mnnerous widely distant realms 
an Isle of Strange Marshes and a Forest of Strange 
Marvels. In addition to the more usual actors of 
heroic romance, the reader meets a flying serpent that 
feeds on ladies fair; a crafty enchanter, Brian Sans- 

> See G. L. Kittrodj^^. "Notes on Elizabethan Plays," Journal qf 
Germanic Philology, ii, 7 ff. 



THE HEROIC PLAY 237 

foy, who imprisons good knights in his tower and 
seeks by true fairy-tale methods to beguile Sir Clamy- 
des of his love; and an oppressed princess wandering 
in page's attire. Only in the vice, Subtle Shift, who 
plays the part of squire to each of the knights in turn; 
in the humorous dialect of the old countryman, Corin; 
and perhaps in the descent of Providence in propria 
persona to prevent the heroine's suicide, is there any 
touch of ordinary dramatic convention. 

Analogous in content and structure is another play 
of approximately the same date {ca. 1576): "An Ex- 
cellent and Pleasant Comedie, termed after the name 
of the Vice, Common Conditions, drawne out of the 
most famous historic of Galiarbus Duke of Arabia, and 
of the good and eeuill successe of him and his two chil- 
dren, Sedmond his sun and Clarisia his daughter." 
The general form and predominant seven-foot couplet 
of "Clyomon and Clamides" appear equally in "Com- 
mon Conditions," which, however, surpasses the other 
drama in its employment of conventional comic ma- 
terial, and shows in general a somewhat less total 
ignorance of the laws of theatrical composition. The 
adventures of the hero and heroine, seeking their 
exiled father through the wide world, are complicated 
by the persecutions of a marauding band of tinkers on 
land and a pirate crew by sea; but most of all by the 
petty knaveries of their page. Common Conditions, 
who creates much of the action by extricating the 
main characters from certain difficulties to plunge 
them mischievously into others. Like the usual vice 
of the interlude, and like his less developed counter- 
part. Subtle Shift in "Clyomon and Clamides," Com- 
mon Conditions makes use of an alian, calling himself 



/ 



288 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

upon occasion Master Affection; and when convicted 
of tills deceit, he explains with some glibness that 
Affection is his "sure name," but Conditions his "kir- 
sonname." Abundant love interest is presented in the 
style popular with the readers of chivalrous romance. 
The heroine, married after a courtship more sensa- 
tional than convincing, to the knight Lamphedon, 
suffers exile, captivity at the hands of pirates, separa- 
tion from her husband, and a long sojourn in a foreign 
land, where as the Lady Metrsea she withstands hap- 
pily the embarrassment of courtship by her own bro- 
ther, likewise disguised, and by the lord of the coun- 
try. Meantime, Lamphedon, roaming over the world 
in search of the lost Clarisia, vanquishes pirate crews 
single-handed, and subdues in battle a notable im- 
prisoner of ladies, Cardolus, the lord of Marofus Isle. 
The wearisome complexity of "Clyomon and Clam- 
ides" and "Common Conditions" does much to ob- 
scure the crude character interest which appears in 
the early Robin Hood fragments, and which practi- 
cally alone kept alive this kind of drama. Like the 
debased romances which inspired them, these plays 
sacrifice to the illegitimate ambition of heaping up 
surprises and sensations the one great merit of their 
type, — the power to paint in rough but striking out- 
line a few elemental passions and experiences. The 
average early Elizabethan heroic play can hardly have 
possessed the confusing intricacy of character and 
situation found in the two overlabored specimens 
which the printers not unnaturally chose for publica- 
tion. Yet even in these examples it is clear that the a ^ 
interest of spectators depended upon character rather ' 
than plot; that is, amid all the profusion of incident Tv»^ 



THE HEROIC PLAY 239 

the attention was not fixed on the answer to a problem 
of intrigue, but followed in dull wonder each of the 
main figures as each passed through a series of discon- 
nected adventures. 

In the way of real character these works had nat- 
urally little, if anything, to offer; and they must of 
necessity be supplanted as soon as mature tragedy 
began to hold up a mirror to actual life. Through a 
time of perilous uncertainty, however, they performed 
for the English theatre two great services, in maintain- 
ing serious story on a popular stage otherwise given 
over to farce, and in fixing the attention upon the 
individual dramatic personage. It is important to 
observe that in the plays under discussion comedy by 
no means chokes interest in the serious plot as it does 
in contemporary works of another style, like "Cara- 
bises" and "Damon and Pithias." In bustle and hu- 
man appeal the figures of knights and ladies more than 
equal those of vice or clown, and the latter character, 
a survival from the interlude convention, is no longer 
an independent attraction, but takes an active part in 
tJie elaboration of the general plot. In such plays 
we find serious English drama making its first stand 
during the Tudor period against the otherwise over- 
whelming vogue of farce and buffoonery. 

So, again, though the early chivalrous drama could 
not make its figures humanly convincing or psycho- 
logically true, it could make them interesting to the 
vulgar playgoer; and that was probably the most in- 
dispensable need of the moment. It kept the eyes of 
the spectators constantly fixed upon its rude men of 
straw, and these were in good time replaced by living 
figures. In this life-giving metamorphosis Marlowe 



^UO THE TUDOR DRAMA 

was tlie cliief enj^iiieHT; hut before it couUl occur there 
was reciuirctl a now anil saner view t)l' th-aniatic art. 
The ail Vance in structure, which eviilcnces the birth 
of tlie new art. came out of Seneca, when Seneca had 
at last been brouj;lit into harmony with tlic spirit of 
tlie a^e. Yet without the succession of crude lieroic 
plays, it is doubtful whetlier Thomas Kyd would have 
found a public for his thaunialurgic "Spanish Tras^- 
edy." Anil if the public had not been there craving 
a drama that sliould deal witli emotions deeper than 
the horse-play and nnniuncry of the interlude, it is well- 
nigh certain that Kyd would never have condescended 
to nationalize classic art. Instead of "The Spanish 
Tragedy" and "Solinian and IVrseda," he might well 
have produced a mere series of "Cornelias." 

At tJie same time, probably in tlie very year (1587), 
in which Kyd settled the place of classic influence in 
tJie development of English trageily, Marlowe took 
up the play of chivalry. He idealized it in "Tambur- 
laine." and gave it a poetic intensity so far in excess of 
anything it had previously known, that the contrast 
kilknl then and forever the original species. "Ilens- 
lowe's Diary," indeed, gives evidence of the attempt 
of that illiterate manager to entertain his audiences 
dm-ing the decade beginning I5[)'i with plays presum- 
ably after the archaic pattern; plays presenting such 
heroes as lluon of Bordeaux, (iodfrcy of Houlogne, 
Chinon of England, King Arthur, Valentine and 
Orson, Randal, Earl of (^hester, and the four sons of 
Aymon.' The total ilisappearance of all these works 
argues sufficiently the eontetnpt they rtveived from a 
public that had outgrown them. The few surviving 
' Sii> Uiiiitlouxs Diary, od. W. W. Gn^g. 



THE HEROIC J'J.y\Y 241 

chivalrous plays of this period, which are not obvious 
derivatives from Marlowe, seem to have been writt<;n 
mostly for dislinotly i)lel)eian audi(;nces, and in every 
case tliey bl(!nd the }i(!roic strain with material of 
anot}ier kind. Weak m(!dl(;ys like "(jeorge-a-Greene," 
"Muoedorus," and "Fair Km" illustrate the last state 
of the undeveloped heroic f)lay.' 

Tliomas I ley wood's "Four J*rentices of London," 
whicli tlie aj)oIo^etic preface to tlie edition of 101.5 
asserts to liave been in fasliion "some fifteen or sixteen 
years a^f)," can certainly liave laid <-Iairn at tlie period 
indiftated to only a very vulvar and inartistic public. 
Jn(;n'e(;tual imitation of "Tarnburlaine" is af)i)arent 
in the valiant quarrelsomeness and Thrasonical mil- 
itary ardor of the lieroes, of whom no fewer than six 
comi)ete for tlie sf)ec;tator's main attention. Jiut tlie 
utter formlcssn(!ss of tlie j)iccc, wliich shows not even 
the most ^limmcrin^ realization of the jiossibilities 
of scene division or the need of f)lot cjoherence, — to- 
gether with tlu; rank absurdity of the fable, — i)roves 
that it belongs in spirit to the i)re-" Tarnburlaine" 
epoch. The sr)ecial appeal to the London ai)prentices, 
support(;d by the most ridiculous distortion of tlie 
story, adds concrete evidence for the natural assump- 
tion that this play, like the lost dramas of Ilenslowe's 
Com[)any, was consciously produc(^d in a ch(;ap and 
obsolete style for Llie satisfaction of the most vulgar 
taste. 

The attitude of progressive and educated opinion 

' In fjirh of Ihi'tic. ]>\:iyH IIk; hcroicul clement appears to form the 
>,'rf)iin(lwork of the i)lot; but in eaefi rase tfii.s fundamental material 
is nef^lccted or distortcfl in the develo|)ment of th<; kind of interest 
proper to tlie more fashionable romantic comedy. 



242 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

toward the old play of chivalrous romance during the 
last ten years of the sixteenth century is expressed in 
the exquisite satire of the type in Peele's "Old Wives' 
Tale"; while in Beaumont's later "Knight of tlie 
Burning Pestle" (IGOJ) ?) — supposed to be directed in 
particular against "The Four Prentices of London" — 
the ridicule is yet sharper, and the restriction of the 
offending si)ccies to the bourgeois public is clearly 
emphasized. The Induction to Beaumont's play con- 
tains a very complete list of tlie favorite dramatic 
entertainments of the contemporary London rabble. 
In "The Four Prentices of London" there remains 
hardly any tiling of the stress upon the individual figure 
which gave the heroic drama its original significance. 
Still less of the old character appears in two other late 
members of the species which owe nothing to the ex- 
ample of Marlowe. One of these plays, first printed 
from a British Museum manuscript in 1884 by Mr. 
Bullen, under the title of "The Distracted Emperor" 
deals in excessively sensational fashion with a morbid 
perversion of the story of Charlemagne, Orlando, and 
Ganelon. The other — entitled "The History of the 
Trial of Chivalry," and published in 1605 as lately 
acted by tlie Earl of Derby's Company — is an elabo- 
rate composite of knightly and romantic adventure 
constructed about an apocryplial theme of rivalry be- 
tween Lewis King of France and the King of Navarre. 
In such works heroic drama reaches an ebb as low as 
that to which heroic romance had been brought in its 
most decadent popularized representations. The in- 
dividual figure loses every charm, and the consequent 
impoverishment in human interest is meanly compen- 
sated by the multiplication of unimpressive stock 



THE HEROIC PLAY 243 

characters and the interpolation of extraneous plot 
devices.^ 

Christopher Marlowe brought to the composition of 
"Tamburlaine" (1587-1588) the full classical training 
of a Cambridge Master of Arts, and not improbably 
also the experience derived from the previous dramatiza- 
tion of the Latin story of Dido. This preparation lent 
to his essay at chivalrous drama a certain invaluable 
sense of form, which shows itself, for example, in the 
poet's ordering his material in acts and scenes; and a 
Vergilian delicacy of finish which made the blank verse 
of "Tamburlaine" illumine the dark ways of dramatic 
style with veritable light from above. In the essentials, 
however, of plot and character, Marlowe followed na- 
tive usage alone. Of tragedy in the proper sense the 
heroic drama had no idea; nor did either part of "Tam- 
burlaine" show any clear conception of that wise 
economy of tragic material which rejects all irrelevant 
horrors and so manages the rest as to heighten the 
climactic interest of the close. There is here no cul- 
mination of suspense as the play approaches the inevi- 
table solution of a great central problem. Rather, we 
follow the progress of the mighty conqueror through a 
succession of breathless glories, till arbitrarily the ex- 
citement drops, and the play ends on the lowered key of 
peaceful marriage or triumphant death. 

Like the compilers of the romances of "Amadis" 
and "Sir Huon," Marlowe starts with the purpose of 

^ Plays of this type doubtless stimulated the taste for purposeless 
martial scenes like those in All 'a Well that Ends Well. A good illus- 
tration is The Weakest Goeth to the Wall, which, though not a heroic 
play, resembles The Trial of Chivalry in its presentation of fictitious 
French history. 



244 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

displaying the grandeur of his hero through a sequence 
of independent adventures; and having commenced 
near tlie point of incredibility, flags his invention in the 
effort to cap each past marvel by the next. The violent 
crudities of botli parts of "Tamburlaine," in speech 
and action, arise not so nuich from inlierent want of 
taste, as from the desperate need of maintaining the 
naturally lessening interest of the piece. The enforced 
self-murder of Agidas; the vulgarity of the word combat 
between Zenocrate and Zabina; and the shocking bar- 
barity of the scenes which depict the imprisomnent 
of Bajazet and his contributory kings, and the cold- 
blooded slaughter of the virgins of Damascus, tlie gov- 
ernor of Babylon, and Tamburlaine's own son are all 
blemishes produced by the attempt to make effective 
on the stage an essentially narrative presentation of 
the trium{)hant warrior. In the general atmosphere of 
tJie scenes, tlie ronu\ntic jncture of the relations be- 
tween Tamburlaine and Zenocrate, and the conception 
of tJie various subsidiary kings and go\ernors, Mar- 
lowe follows the conventional usage of chivalrous ro- 
mance; and in making the great central figure common 
to all such literature at the same time the exponent of 
his own personal rage for ideal grandeur, he created the 
first great psychological character in English tragedy 
and exorcised a fervent living spirit to inform tlie pro- 
mising dramatic frame which the English Senecans had 
devised. Tragic drama in England was consummated 
in tJie blending of classical and native influences, in the 
union of form and spirit. It is probably no chance phe- 
nomenon that " Hamlet," the most typical of English 
tragedies, is the one in which we can see most clearly 
how the rich plot outline of the " tragedy of blood " has 



THE HEROIC PLAY 245 

[ been overlaid and spiritualized by that deep study of a 
human soul first attempted in the plays of Marlowe. 

In the study of the two parts of "Tamburlaine," the 
critic's interest in actual achievement transcends for 
the first time that suggested by evolutionary poten- 
tialities. Crude as these plays are on the side of form, 
they yet embody certain stable peculiarities in their 
relation to life and art which we are accustomed to re- 
gard as special characteristics of the best Elizabethan 
drama. They mark the approach to the great dramatic 
watershed which separates early Elizabethan crudity 
from Jacobean and Caroline sterility. To be sure, the 
individual heights stand far above them in the master- 
pieces of Shakespeare and Jonson, but the continued 
rise of the general dramatic level can no longer be 
safely presupposed. 

The wide-spread imitation of the "Tamburlaine" 
plays was inevitable. They implanted the great de- 
sideratum of theatrical success — striking psycliologic 
effect — in a type of literature long beloved not only 
on the popular stage, but also in the narrative fiction 
of the time. That nearly all these imitations proved 
total failures was perfectly natural. "Tamburlaine" 
was even less susceptible of uninspired copying than 
"The Spanish Tragedy"; to an even greater extent 
were its excesses of speech and action part of its very 
nature. The bombast and violence of Marlowe's play 
were transmuted into legitimate dramatic material by 
the fervency with which the poet expressed his own high 
aspiring soul in the terms of world-conquest and war- 
hke ruthlessness. Reproduced by any less translunary 
pen, these extravagances showed themselves for the 
intrinsic rubbish that they were; pruned away, they left 



246 THE TUDOR DILUIA 

not even the plot outline upon which the pedestrian 
imitators of Kyd were able to rest their helplessness. 

In the "Comicall Historie of Alphonsus, King of 
Arragon," Robert Greene, one of the most active pro- 
moters of dramatic innovation, has attempted with 
disastrous result to emulate the success of "Tambur- 
laine." Diction, character, and incident are reproduced 
brazenly in a medley of the most perfect insipidity. 
Apparently conscious of his inability to hold the atten- 
tion by the mere slavish following of Marlowe's exam- 
ple, Greene has added several extraneous adornments 
which bring out the more glaringly the hea\'y lifeless- 
ness of his play. In accordance with an undramatic 
convention fashionable at the time and exemplified in 
"Soliman and Perseda," the deeds of Alphonsus are 
framed within an elaborate mythological masque of 
^'enus and the Muses. Many speeches are deprived of 
force by studied imitations of the Euphuistic style, — 
such as allusions to the curious herb which enables the 
severed snake to join together its "battered corpse"; 
to the Asbeston stone, "Which, if it once be heat in 
flames of fire, Denieth to becommen colde againe"; 
and to the fabled Echinus; while the wife and daughter 
of the Tiu"kish Emperor are frankly presented as war- 
ring Amazons. The listlessness of the portrayal of 
Alphonsus's continual victories is relieved, in a manner 
eagerly followed by later writers of dull plays, by inter- 
polated exhibitions of magic. Medea conjures up Cal- 
chas, dressed surprisingly "in a white surphse and 
a Cardinals Myter," at the court of Amurack; and 
Mahomet prophesies through a brazen head to tlie 
Turkish princes. 

In the next two plays of Greene — "The Look- 



THE HEROIC PLAY 247 

ing Glass for London," written in conjunction with 
Thomas Lodge, and "Orlando Furioso" — the influ- 
ence of " Tamburlaine " is likewise conspicuoas. The 
ranting blasphemy of Rasni, King of Nineveh, and the 
magniloquent speeches of Orlando, with the picture 
of the servile bands of kings that attend on each, are 
clearly copied from Marlowe; but neither the intro- 
duction of spectacular stage business and a number of 
tolerable comic scenes in the former play, nor the bor- 
rowing of the Kydian theme of heroic insanity in the 
latter saves them from the inevitable failure incident 
to the disparity between the grandeur of the stolen 
shreds and patches of language and the psychological 
poverty of the speakers. Greene had a great work to do 
in English comedy; but his attempts at straining the 
delicate pastoral note with which nature had alone en- 
dowed him into a semblance of Marlowe's passionate 
soul-expression served only to show how unique was at 
this time the tragical gift of the latter poet. 

One of the most readable of the humbler imitations 
of "Tamburlaine" is an anonymous play acted by the 
Children of the Queen's Chapel and preserved in a very 
carelessly printed edition, dated 1594. This work, en- 
titled "The Warres of Cyrus King of Persia against 
Antiochus King of Assyria, with the Tragicall ende of 
Panthaea," derives its plot from the "Cyropaedia" of 
Xenophon, of which a complete translation had ap- 
peared as early as 1567. The Mario vian influence is 
everywhere evident: in the versification; in the general 
treatment of the grandiose theme of conflicting Asiatic 
empires, each with its host of tributary kings and 
chieftains; and in the high romantic development given 
to the interests both of love and war. It would seem 



248 THE TUDOR DRiVMA 

that reminiscence of the second part of "Tambur- 
laine " was particularly strong in the mind of the author. 
The treatment of tlie Panthaia - Araspas - Abradatas 
love episode — the only one of the several independ- 
ent stories which reaches a dramatic conclusion — is 
pretty clearly indebted to the Olympia-Theridamas 
scenes in "Tamburlaine II." Moreover, in the man- 
agement of the figure of Cyrus, the titular hero, the 
play shows a decided change from the procedure of the 
first part of "Tamburlaine" aud the immediate imita- 
tions of that work. The latter plays concentrate atten- 
tion wholly upon the chief personage, whose rise they 
portray from humble beginnings to the attainment of 
unexampled magnificence. Cyrus, however, in the 
drama under discussion, occupies a position much more 
like that of Tamburlaine in Marlowe's second play. He 
is the undisputed conqueror, who has reached tlie 
zenith of his glory, and who reigns secure through tlie 
entire progress of the action. Consequently, the dra- 
matic interest, instead of following the single career of 
the ruling genius of the world portrayed, divides itself 
among the different minor figures upon which the 
hero's brilliance has cast reflected splendor. In tlie 
second part of "Tamburlaine," to be sure, though 
many scenes deal with the independent adventures 
of Sigismond and Orcanes, Callepine, Theridamas and 
Techelles, tlie personality of Tamburlaine himself is 
always kept clearly in view, and the apparently scat- 
tered threads of narrative all lead up to the final glorifi- 
cation of the world-conqueror in the last act. The au- 
thor of "The Warres of Cyrus" has been able to endow 
his hero with no such all-pervasive significance, and 
his play consequently lacks unity of impression as well 



THE HEROIC PLAY 249 

as unity of structure. The very exaltation of Cyrus's 
character to a height of vague nobihty where he shows 
himself superior to the human i)assions of love, hatred, 
envy, and ahnost even of ambition, makes this figure 
necessarily pale and bloodless. Indeed, he finds a truer 
counterpart in the amiably insipid hero of Rowe's 
"Tamerlane" than in the infinitely more sympathetic, 
though faultier Tamburlaine of Marlowe. 

In "Doctor Faustus" Marlowe first took up a 
strictly tragic theme. The main idea is again that of 
infinite aspiration expressed in a single colossal figure. 
In the case of tliis play, however, the hero's ambition 
to sway "All things that moue betweene the quiet 
poles" takes a direction which, instead of leading him 
through a succession of individual triumphs, brings 
him immediately into conflict with the fundamental 
moral laws, and broaches an issue soluble only in the 
terrific final scene. In this play, the special feature of 
the heroic drama, the treatment of a central hero who 
dares and does to the uttermost, has attained its great- 
est imagir^able development. It testifies strongly to 
the inherent appeal of this conception that " Doctor 
Faustus," though grossly violating the rules of dramatic 
structure and greatly qualifying its effectiveness by the 
interpolation of comic scenes of unutterable bathos, 
was yet on the Elizabethan stage, and remains, even 
when presented on that of to-day, one of the most suc- 
cessful tragedies which the age produced. 

The opportunity for the pure heroic play, in which 
the entire interest was focused upon a single figure, 
was naturally limited, and grew more so with the 
development of critical taste and the emergence of 
rival themes. Relatively few characters possessed of 



250 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

sufficient vividness and novelty to hold the undivided 
attention through a performance could be imagined; 
and the successful presentation of such a character 
required very unusual poetic power. To Marlowe's 
great portraits of Tamburlaine and Faustus should 
be added Shakespeare's treatment of Richard III, 
a surprisingly liunum {)rescntment of the Machiavel- 
lian type; as well as the apotheosis of the hero-king 
in "Henry V," and probably the less happy efforts of 
Chapman in tlie Biron and Bussy d'Ambois plays. 
The final triumph of the species is the figure of Hamlet, 
where we find a close study of a complex individual 
superimposed upon a preexistent melodramatic plot. 

It was in its disintegration that the heroic drama 
exerted its widest influence. Only by distributing the 
psychological interest among a number of figures was 
it possible either to secure an approximation to real 
conditions of life or to make use of the infinite permu- 
tations of mood due to the interaction of the various 
figures upon one another. Only by such procedure, 
moreover, was it practicable to reconcile interest in 
character with interest in plot. The execution of these 
final perfections was the main contribution of Shake- 
speare's tragic practice. It was he who extended charac- 
ter interest and psychological truth from the protago- 
nists of the drama to its meanest subordinates; and it 
was he, equally, who, while normally resting the chief 
attention ■uj)on individual character, yet made the pre- 
sentment of character advance by means of the fullest 
stage action and the most careful evolution of a dra- 
matic plot. 

Marlowe's last great tragedies, "The Jew of Malta" 
and "Edward II," show important variations from the 



THE HEROIC PLAY 251 

type of heroic drama. In tlie former play, excessive 
engrossment with melodramatic plot effect, due prob- 
ably to the example of Kyd, causes the tota^ distortion 
of the main figure. It may even be questioned whetlier 
the vivid portrayal of Barabas in the first acts is not 
rather an unconscious reminiscence of the poet's earlier 
manner than a part of his serious aim. "Edward II" 
displays an evident desire to escape from the one-man 
type of drama; and this escape is effected — rather 
curiously and somewhat to the detriment of the piece 
— not by the juxtaposition of several figures of equiv- 
alent drainatic weight, but by giving predominating 
importance to each of three or four during various por- 
tions of the play. Gaveston, Edward and Young Mor- 
timer never become parties in an equal tragic conflict, 
but each in turn assumes the centre of the stage and 
absorbs the attention of the spectators almost as com- 
pletely during his period of ascendancy as Tamburlaine 
and Faustus had done before. "The Jew of Malta" 
and "Edward II" show, therefore, that Marlowe's 
practical experience w^as teaching him the necessity of 
presenting plot as well as character, and that he did 
not hesitate in pursuit of the former interest to make 
very heavy sacrifices in poetic and psychological effect. 
Shakespeare's "Richard II" is an obvious deriva- 
tive from "Edward II," and represents an advance 
chiefly in the answer which it gives to the problem 
merely evaded in the other play. Here, for perhaps the 
first time, plot interest and character interest are com- 
bined by the treatment of a conflict arising from the 
opposition of contrasted mental types. The impracti- 
cal and unreliable, though emotionally rich, nature of 
Richard is set forth with the broad full delineation 



252 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

accorded to Marlowe's Tamburlaine and Faustus and 
to Shakespeare's earlier figure of Richard III; but by 
outlining against this poetic hero the complementary 
personality of the political hero, Bolingbroke, and by 
attributing the misfortunes of Richard to his lack of 
qualities possessed by his successful rival, the author 
at once motivates the action of the piece, and brings 
his careful portrayal of each of the main figures into 
direct relation both with the incidents of the plot and 
with a definite theory of life. The device thus inaugu- 
rated of evolving plot out of the conflict of antagonistic 
types of character became the means by which Shake- 
speare attained some of his greatest triumphs . The con- 
trast between Brutus and Cassius, Antony and Octa- 
vius, Othello and lago, gave him opportunity not only 
for the most brilliant revelations of character, but also 
for the most thrilling scenes of intrigue and action. 

Thus the heroic play, having inculcated the study of 
the human personality, gave place to the more accurate 
reflection of life which it had made possible. In the 
time of Shakespeare's maturity the only plays of heroic 
type really holding the public ear were, with a few excep- 
tions, the chronicle histories, which detailed in loosely 
cohering scenes the most notable events in the lives of 
familiar national characters. These plays, constituting, 
with the other histories, a class apart, owed their tem- 
porary vogue to special conditions and require separate 
discussion. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

A. Simple Dramatizations of Heroic Stort 

(a) Early Robin Hood Plays. Robin Hood and the Sheriff" 
of Noltingham. MS. fragment, ca. 1485. Printed 



THE HEROIC PLAY 253 

J. M. G., Notes and Queries, Oct. 27, 1855 ; F. J. Child, 
Ballads, iii, 90 ; J. M. Manly, Specimens, i, 1897; Ma- 
lone Society "Collections," i, 2, 1908. A Play of Robin 
Hood for May-Games. Two early editions printed, with- 
out date by W. Copland and E. White respectively. 
(The work is made up of two separate plays : Robin 
Hood and the Friar, and Robin Hood and the Potter.) 
Reprinted, Child, Manly, and Malone Society, as above. 

(V) Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes. " As it hath been 
sundry times Acted by her Maiesties Players," 1599. 
Reprinted, A. Dyce, Works of George Peele, vol. iii, 
1839. Discussion : L. Kellner, Engl. Stud., xiii (1889), 
187-229 (a valuable article, disproving Peele's author- 
ship) ; R. Fischer, " Zur Frage nach der Authorsehaft 
Ton C. & C," E7igl. Stud., xiv (1890), 344-365 ; G. L. 
Kittredge, " Notes on Elizabethan Plays," Jrl. Germ. 
Phil., ii, 7 ff. 

(c) Common Conditions. Printed for J. Hunter, n. d. Re- 
printed, A. Brandl, Quellen, 1898 ; J. S. Farmer, Anon, 
Plays (4th Series), 1908. 

B. Decadent Heroic Plat3 

George a Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield. See bibliogra- 
phy on p. 293. 

Mucedorus. " A Most pleasant Comedie of Musedorus the 
kings Sonne of Valentia and Amadine the kings daughter of 
Arragon," 1598. Reprinted 1606. " Amplified with new addi- 
tions, as it was acted before the Kings Maiestie," 1610. At 
least thirteen later seventeenth-century editions are known. 
Reprinted, J. P. Collier, 1824 ; N. Delius, 1874 ; Hazlitt's 
Dodsley, vii ; Warnke and Proescholdt, 1878 ; C. F. T. 
Brooke, The Shakespeare Apocrypha, 1908. For discussion, see 
Bibliography to Shakespeare Apocrypha. 

Fair Em. See bibliography on p. 293. 

Heywood, Thomas : The Four Prentices of London. "With 
the Conquest of Jerusalem, 1615. Second edition, 1632. 
Reprinted, Ancient British Drama, 1810, vol. iii ; Reed's and 
Collier's Dodsley. 

The Trial of Chivalry. " With the life and death of Caualiero 
Dicke Bowyer. As it hath bin lately acted by the right Hon- 



254 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Durable the Earle of Darby liis servants," 1605. Reprinted, 
A. II. Bullen, Old English Plai/s, iii, 1884. 
The Distracted Emperor. Treserved in Brit. Mus. MS. 
Printed, A. II. Bullen, Old English Plays, iii, 1884. 

C. Travesties of Heroic Drama 

Peele, George : The Old Wives' Tale. " Played by the 
Queeues Maiesties players. Written by G. P.," 1595. Reprinted 
in editions of Peele's Works, A. Dyce, 1828, 18G1, 1879 ; 
A. H. Bullen, 1888. Separately reprinted, F. B. Gum mere in 
Representative English Comedies, 1003 ; Malone Society, 1907 ; 
A. H. Thorndike, Minor Elizabethan Drama, ii {Everyman's 
Library); acting version, F. W. Cady, 1911. 

Beaumont, Francis, and Fletcher, John : The Knight of 
the Burning Pestle, 1613. Reprinted (two editions) 1635, 
Included in the second (1679) Beaumont and Fletcher folio, 
and in later collected editions ; JMermaid edition, vol. i; H. S. 
Murch, Yale Studies, 1908. 

D. Heroic Drama under the Influence of Marlowe 

Marlowe, Christopher : works ed. Robinson, 1826; A. Dyce, 
1850, 1858; Cunningham, 1870; A. II. Bullen, 1885; C. F. 
T. Brooke, 1910. Inedited reprints published by Newnes, 
1905 ; Everytnan's Library, 1909. The " best plays " ed. H. El- 
lis, Mermaid series. General discussion: J. Le Gay Brereton, 
three papers on Marlowe in " Elizabethan Drama. Notes and 
Studies," 1909 ; E. Faligan, " De Marlovianis Fabulis," 1887; 
J. H. Ingram, " Chistopher Marlowe and his Associates," 
1904 ; J. Schipper, " De Versu Marlovii," 1867 ; G. C. 
Moore Smith, •' Marlowe at Cambridge," Mod. Lang. Review, 
iv (1909). 

Tamburlaine, Two Parts. Both printed 1590 and 1592. The 
two parts reprinted with separate title-pages dated 1605 and 
1606 respectively. Included in all collected editions and sep- 
arately edited by A. Wagner, 1885. Discussion : C. H. Iler- 
ford and A. Wagner, " The Sources of Marlowe's Tambur- 
laine," Academy, xxiv, 265, 260 (Oct. 20, 1883) ; C. F. T. 
Brooke, " Marlowe's Tamburlaine," Mod. Lang. Notes, 
March, 1910. 
Doctor Faustus. Printed 1604, as acted by the Earl of Not- 



THE HEROIC PLAY 255 

tingham's (Lord Admiral's) servants. Reprinted 1609, 
1611. Enlarged version printed 1616, 1619, 1620, 1624, 
1631. A third, greatly perverted, text was printed 1663. 
Separately printed, C. W. Dilke, Old English Plays, i, 1814; 
W. Wagner, 1877 ; A. W. Ward, Old English Drama (with 
Friar Bacon and Friar fiungay), 1878, etc. ; H. Breymann, 
1889 ; I. GoUancz, Temple Dramatists, 1897. Discussion : 
H. Logeman, " Faustus Notes," 1898 ; R. K. Root, " Two 
Notes on Marlowe's Doctor Faustus," Engl, Stud., 1910, 
144-149. (Also pp. 117-134 of the same volume.) 

The Jew of Malta. See bibliography on p. 228. 

Edward II. See bibliography on p. 348. 
The Wars of Cyrus King of Persia. " Played by the children 

of her Maiesties Chappell," 1594. Reprinted, W. Keller, 

Shakespeare Jahrbuch, xxxvii (1901). 
Greene, Robert: Alphonsus, King of Arragon, 1599. Re- 

printed in collected editions of Greene. See bibliography, 

p. 293. 

Orlando Furioso. " The Historic of Orlando Furioso One of 
the twelve Pieres of France," 1594, 1599. 
Lodge, Thomas, and Greene, Robert : A Looking Glass for 

London and England, 1594. Reprinted 1598, 1602, 1617. 



CHAPTER VIII 

ROMANTIC COMEDY AND JASTORAL COMEDY 

The Puritan assailants of the drama quoted in the last 
chapter ^ confuse three distinct species of literature in 
their mention of the ungodly materials employed by 
the early playwrights. The heroic legend, against which 
they inveigh in greatest detail, was either of native 
origin, or had been long naturalized and adopted into 
general currency. We have seen how it contributed 
indispensable elements to the evolution of tragedy. The 
other works were all exotics, — members of two great 
types of fiction, each of which was only just establish- 
ing its position in English favor when the drama ap- 
proached maturity. 

The debt of the Elizabethan theatre to the prose 
romance is well known to all who read handbooks 
on Shakespeare. The names of the novels on which 
were based the plays of "As You Like It," "Twelfth 
Night," "The Winter's Tale," "Measure for Measure," 
"Othello," and many others, are sufficiently familiar; 
while contemporary collections of stories, like Painter's 
"Palace of Pleasure" and its rival, "The Petite Palace 
of Pettie His Pleasure," have in late years beeri re- 
printed, and enjoy at least a scholarly public. Such 
books as Greene's "Pandosto," Lodge's "Rosalinde," 
and Sidney's "Arcadia" have even, it may be hoped, 
passed beyond the stage of purely critical interest, and 
make a modest appeal upon their merits. Works of this 
1 See pp. 233, 234. 



ROMANTIC AND PASTORAL COMEDY 257 

kind were produced during the latter half of Elizabeth's 
reign in ever increasing number, occasionally by writers 
like Lodge and Greene and Sidney as original literature 
under foreign stimulus; more often by the easy means 
of translation. 

A radical difference appears between the two species 
of imported fiction which thus simultaneously con- 
tested the popular favor. The one was represented by 
the realistic novel, Italian for the most part in charac- 
ter and in origin. The tales of Boccaccio, Bandello, 
Cinthio, and their imitators were the main source of 
English compilations like that of Painter, and served 
throughout the entire period as an inexhaustible trea- 
sury of plot and a rough pattern for realistic delineation. 
But this influence, though copiously exerted both in 
comedy and tragedy, was not deep or significant. The 
greatest dramatists always modified the crude effects 
of Italian realism by large imaginative infusions; and 
Shakespeare, who was an incessant borrower of its plot 
outlines, never failed to reject its philosophy of life. 
"Twelfth Night" is a superb example of the poet's skill 
in harmonizing a coarse intrigue plot with the delicate 
romantic atmosphere which he derived from the other 
type of exotic story. 

The second influence was that of the pastoral ro- 
mance, introduced chiefly from Italy and Spain, pro- 
ductive first of a rich prose literature and then of the 
peculiar species of "romantic comedy," which flour- 
ished with the most buoyant life for a dozen or fifteen 
years and disappeared, never again to encounter the 
conditions necessary to its revival. This comedy, of 
which Shakespeare is the unrivalled master, always be-, 
trayed clearly its non-dramatic origin. Assuming upon 



258 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

its transference to the stage rather the mere setting 
than the substance of theatrical art, it continued to 
base its appeal upon the kind of interest excited pecul- 
iarly by narrative fiction. Fundamentally, it depends 
always for the attainment of its effects upon the han- 
dling of "atmosphere" and romantic accident rather 
than psychological interpretation or dramatic intrigue. 
The fact is worthy of the most careful attention that 
such an ephemeral type, which obviously only clings 
to the skirts of true drama, and with which so keen and 
delicate a critic as Hazlitt frankly shows his lack of 
sympathy,^ should be the main instrument of many 
of Shakespeare's noblest comic achievements. "■ 

The story of pastoral influence on European litera- 
ture goes back to the very beginning of the renaissance 
movement. The eclogues of Vergil, to a smaller extent 
those of Theocritus, and even more perhaps the modern 
Vergilian imitations of the Italian Mantuanus (Bat- 
tista Spagnuoli, d. 1516), introduced writers of the fif- 
teenth and sixteenth centuries to a species of fiction 
which afforded a very welcome relief both from the 
blood-curdling narratives of heroic romance and from 
the sordid realism of the popular novel. The strict pas- 
toral seems seldom to have appealed to the more gen- 
eral and unfashionable public : it was essentially too re- 
mote from the real activities and interests of men, and 
often too lacking in excitement. By the academic 
circles of the Continent, however, this genre was taken 
up with an enthusiasm which it is nowadays far beyond 
our power to comprehend. The accident of the Vergilian 
connection and the opportunity furnished by the pas- 
toral of interweaving constant allusions to Ovidian 
^ See Hazlitt, English Comic Writers, Lecture II. 



ROMANTIC AND PASTORAL COMEDY 259 

mythology and the Golden Age tradition doubtless gave 
this particular art-form a factitious attraction for the 
classic zealots of the Revival of Letters. It is not 
necessary to deal here specifically with the pastoral 
eclogues in verse. The diffusion of this type through- 
out Europe is well enough indicated by the Latin works 
of Mantuanus, the court pastorals of the French 
writer, Clement Marot, and by the " Shepherd's Calen- 
dar" of their imitator Spenser. As a source of the 
Elizabethan drama, the pastoral element requires 
consideration under two aspects : as it appears in the 
prose pastoral romance, and as we find it already in 
dramatic shape in the plays of the school of Tasso. 

The first important pastoral romance is of the most 
respectable antiquity, and takes us back far beyond 
the period indicated for the general prevalence of the 
type. It is the "Daphnis and Chloe" of the Alexan- 
drian Greek poet, Longus, and belongs to the fifth cen- 
tury A. D. The story, which is a kind of foreshadowing 
of "Paul and Virginia," deals with the companionship 
and love of shepherd and shepherdess from their earli- 
est childhood. About the hero and heroine are assem- 
bled the usual other characters of the later pastoral 
convention: the wise old shepherds; the wncked herds- 
man, in subsequent treatments frequently presented as 
a Satyr, who attempts to destroy the happiness of the 
lovers; pirates and similar intruders from the outside 
world, who are brought into the story for the purpose 
of abducting or otherwise afflicting the main characters. 
A contemporary work even more romantic in tone, and 
likewise written in decadent Greek, is the "^Ethiopian 
History" of Heliodorus, treating the impossible adven- 
tures and mutual love of two embodiments of all the 



260 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

proprieties — Theagenes and Charicleia — who, after 
beingcapturedby the usual piratical crew and enduring 
numberless accidents and escapes, are in tlie end dis- 
covered and made happy by their true parents just in 
time to prevent them from perishing as sacrifices to tlie 
patron deity of their country, Daphnis and Chloe and 
tlie " -(Ethiopica " were both rendered into French before 
1550 by Jacques Amyot, subsequently the translator 
of Plutarch. During the reign of Elizabeth there ap- 
peared an English version of Longus's pastoral by An- 
gel Day (1587), while Heliodorus was very splendidly 
translated by Thomas Underdowne. These Greek ro- 
mances, however, should not be regarded as having set 
tlie pastoral fashion. They were rather recalled into 
vogue by the existence of works in the same style which 
had arisen independently. 

The modern pastoral convention is said to begin wdth 
the "Anieto" of Boccaccio, a work centring about the 
lamentations of seven nymphs, who relate the stories 
of their unhappy love to a model listener — the shep- 
herd Anieto. At the end of each tale metrical eclogues 
are inserted, and we tlius find the blending of prose 
fiction and lyric so usual in the pastoral romances of 
tlie Elizabethans. Another famous Italian work is the 
"Arcadia" of Sannazzaro, first published in 1502. 
Though hardly a true pastoral on any analysis, it gave 
to Sidney's book a good deal more tlian its mere name, 
and did as much, doubtless, as any single production of 
the time to originate interest in the type. 

Much the most important of the developed pastoral 
romances is the "Diana" of tlie Spaniard Jorge de 
Montemayor,* a book which had an enormous vogue, 
, ' Montemayor was by birth a Portuguese, but wrote Castilian. 



ROMANTIC AND PASTORAL COMEDY 20 1 

and settled for a considerable period the structure and 
subject matter of the type. An P^nglish translation of 
the "Diana," by Bartholomew Yong, was published 
in 1598, but had been executed, the preface tells us, 
many years before. The work is a complex tissue of 
narratives of misfortune in love, related successively 
by various shepherds and nymphs. It is best known to 
the Shakespeare student from the circumstances that 
the tale of the Shepherdess P^clismena appears to liave 
suggested the story of Proteus and Julia in "The Two 
Gentlemen of Verona," and that the Shepherd Mon- 
tano may have suggested the name of a charaf;ter in 
"Othello" and another in the older version of " Ham- 
let." Yet the book is by no means uninteresting in 
itself, and its interspersed songs possess very consider- 
able merit in Yong's translation. It is worth noting, as 
an indication of the novel's popularity, that the com- 
piler of the anthology, "England's Helicon," quotes 
Yong's versions of Montemayor more frequently, I 
think, than he cites any of the native English poets. 

The limited plot material and monotonous atmos- 
phere of tPie pastoral convention were in themselves 
unsuited to that indefinite expansion to which all popu- 
lar renaissance themes were likely to be subjected. 
Such works de longue haleine as the "Diana" could be 
spun out of the thin web of pastoral incident only by 
the extensive interjiolation of conventional material 
from the heroic romance. A tendency to the introduc- 
tion of adventuroas incident is observable in "Daphnis 
and Chloe," and, in much higher degree, in the "^thi- 
opica" of Heliodorus. The Spanish school of Monte- 
mayor, from which Sidney inherited, pushed to the 
final limit the ridiculous combination of nymphs and 



262 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

shepherds from the pastoral world with knights, mon- 
sters, and sorcerers out of the old romances. The conse- 
quences of this melange can be traced not only in such 
narrative works as the "Arcadia" and the "Faerie 
Queene," but also in the variegated effects of humble 
plays like "Mucedorus," and in the universal fond- 
ness among more meritorious dramas for the insertion 
of sylvan or pastoral scenes within the articulations of 
a serious plot. 

The more legitimately pastoral sections of the 
"Diana" exemplify pretty well the entire range, in 
point of machinery, atmosphere, and incident, of the 
pastoral novels of Greene and Lodge; and it was by 
means of such works as the "Menaphon" and "Rosa- 
linde" of these writers that pastoral influence most 
seriously impressed the English drama. The effect of 
the Italian pastoral play appears to have been later in 
date, and certainly it produced less general results. 

Neither in the romances of Montemayor and Sidney, 
nor in the simpler novels of the type, is the pastoral 
convention treated with seriousness or consistency. To 
a smaller extent even than in the Italian play is the life 
of the imaginary shepherd society described for any in- 
trinsic interest of its own. Montemayor uses the pas- 
toral setting, as Mr. Stanley Weyman uses the setting 
of French history, merely to furnish an environment 
sufficiently vague and remote from real life for the free 
movement of stories of knightly love and adventure. 
The same thing is true in the main of the novels of 
Greene and Lodge. The success of these works was not 
conditioned upon the portrayal of manners or types of 
character such as might be imagined to exist among 
Arcadian shepherds; it resulted rather from the curi- 



ROMANTIC AND PASTORAL COMEDY 263 

osity to know how the tangled mesh of incident was to 
be untwisted in the end, and from the presentation of 
a thoroughly fanciful world whose attractiveness con- 
sisted in its entire freedom from reaUstic trammels. 

The prose pastorals in England and elsewhere would 
thus appear nearly destitute of dramatic possibilities. 
That they should, notwithstanding, have exercised so 
appreciable an influence as they did upon comedy 
seems at first almost paradoxical; yet the phenomenon 
is at once explained when one comes to examine the 
particular plays produced under the tutelage of such 
works. It is not definitely pastoral dramas, like "The 
_Sad Shepherd" and ^The Faithful Shepherdess" that 
show the influence of Mojitjmay or 's school. It is rather 
tEeunique and exquisitely beautiful art-form which we 
call, 'par excellence. Romantic Comedy, work like the 
sylvan parts of Greene's "James IV" and "Friar Bacon 
and Friar Bungay" and Shakespeare's "x\s You Like 
It" and "Twelfth Night." 

t Robert Greene may be safely reckoned as the founder 
of this type of drama; and there can be no doubt that 
what Greene put into romantic comedy was precisely 
what he had learned as a writer of pastoral romances. 
In the typical plays of Greene and in the related com- 
edies of Shakespeare's middle and latest periods, the 
interest excited by the presentation of a dramatic con- 
flict is reduced or evanescent. Comparatively speaking, 
there is little psychological development. Many of the 
characters are quite shadowy; none — considering the 
known powers of the writer — is possessed of the high- 
est degree of dramatic intensity. These plays depend 
for their great attractiveness upon just the elements 
which one finds in novels like "Menaphon" and "Pan- 



S64 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

dosto," — upon an imaginary "atmosphere," half pas- 
toral, half that of fairyland, and upon the series of 
absorbing adventures which befall the actors without 
their very serious responsibility. 

Thus, the primary influence of the great pastoral 
literature of the Renaissance upon the Elizabethan 
theatre had for its chief result the domestication within 
the drama of essentially non-dramatic narrative ideals 
derived from the contaminated pastoral novels of the 
day. One reason for this is, naturally, the enormous 
current demand for all sorts of theatrical entertainment, 
the inability to supply this demand from the slender 
resources of existing comedy and tragedy, and the con- 
sequent attraction upon the stage of literary matter 
which properly belonged outside the walls of the thea- 
tre, and which in all other epochs has found narrative 
expression. Greene, an ardent seeker after popularity, 
already famous as the author of pastoral novels, saw 
his opportunity. By dressing his essentially fictional 
themes in rough dramatic guise, he instituted a new 
species of comedy, which from first to last comprised 
stories of love and sylvan adventure rather than plays 
dealing with human character and conflict.^ It is not 
easy to criticise this type. Its successful exemplifica- 
tion, as well as its very existence, was the result of its 
falling upon an age which qualified the eager search 
into the truth of actuality by a peculiarly large admix- 
ture of romantic nonsense, and read a mystic philosophy 
into the trite impossibilities of the nursery tale. The 

^ The relations between Greene's early pastoral novels and his 
romantic comedies is thus precisely analogous to that which exists 
between Lyly's Ewphues and the latter writer's courtly comedies 
in euphuistic prose. See p. 171 ff. 



ROMANTIC AND PASTORAL COMEDY 265 

mouth of the judicial theorist is stopped by the fact 
that the greatest artist of the day moulded in this form 
the brightest and most universally loved plays of his 
maturity and by the further marvel that he chose the 
same fragile and even trivial vehicle for the last deep 
fraught expression of his ripened age. 

Pastoral drama of a kind had been freely produced 
during the decade immediately previous to Greene's 
first concern with the type. But all these works, ini- 
tiated perhaps by Peele's graceful "Arraignment of 
Paris "and continued in the sylvan comedies of Lyly, 
are expressions of courtly scholarship, compacted of 
mythological anecdote with varied reminiscences of the 
classical eclogue. They show no demonstrable trace of 
that influence of the pastoral romance which was the 
determining factor in romantic comedy. 

Greene's first venture in the new style, "Friar 
Bacon and Friar Bungay," is a medley illustrating to a 
degree unusual even in the plays of this imitative writer 
the desire to profit by all the current recommendations 
to popularity. It cannot be doubted that the comedy 
owes its original conception to the vogue of Marlowe's 
"Faustus," just as Greene's "Alphonsus" had earlier 
been prompted by the success of "Tamburlaine." In 
the interval which had elapsed since the production of 
the earlier work, Greene had measured the range of his 
dramatic powers. By selecting a supernatural theme 
inherently much lighter than the dark story of Faust, 
and by restricting himself to the presentation of the 
most innocent feats of white magic, Greene introduced 
upon the stage a type of beneficent, romantic conjurer 
which long enjoyed an unusual vogue. The main appeal 
of this most popular play lay, however, less in the do- 



266 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

ings of its two titular heroes than in the conventional 
romantic portrayal of the love of Edward and the Lord 
Lacy. Here, in the intercourse of prince and peer with 
the humble pastoral nymph among the cream-pots of 
the dairy and the booths of the rustic fair, or in the 
avenues of the King's forest, Greene found a thoroughly 
congenial subject, in the elaboration of which he has 
blended the gracefully unreal atmosphere of the fa- 
miliar pastoral novel with certain touches of truer feel- 
ing and closer observation. In accordance with a taste 
which Greene perhaps began, the vagueness of the 
Utopian setting of this play has been relieved, without 
being brought at all closer to the truth of nature, by 
the introduction of fanciful portraits of real persons. 
Henry III and his heir, the three visiting sovereigns 
of Germany, Castile, and Saxony, and the prominent 
nobles of the time are pictured in consciously unhistoric 
lights; while Eleanor — the reward bestowed by poetic 
justice upon the prince in return for his magnanimous 
surrender of Margaret — is idealized with an indiffer- 
ence to actual fact probably no less complete than that 
which permitted Peele in his "Edward I" to paint the 
same reputable queen as a monster of infidelity. 

It is generally agreed that the chief merit of Greene's 
romantic plays, "Friar Bacon" and "James IV," 
apart from the creation of their fresh atmosphere, lies 
in the character of his heroines, Margaret, Dorothea, 
and Ida; and that these figures, together with the idyl- 
lic environment they carry with them, are a direct im- 
portation from Greene's pastoral novels. The type of 
woman so presented, always essentially the same, and 
sprung originally, it seems, from the poet's most inti- 
mate personal experience, remained an established 



ROMANTIC AND PASTORAL COMEDY 267 

figure in romantic comedy, and gave the species its 
distinctive tone. It was doubtless Greene's initiative 
which placed the action of Shakespeare's similar plays 
in a woman's world, remote always from realistic so- 
phistication, — a world of sentiment rather than rea- 
son, in which Rosalind, Viola, Imogen and Perdita 
tend to outvalue their masculine associates. 

A capital fault in Greene's dramatic method was al- 
ways the attempt to crowd into each individual play the 
entire stock of incidents and plot devices at his com- 
mand. This tendency doubtless accounts for the dog- 
in-the-manger attitude toward other dramatists mani- 
fested in Greene's famous "Groatsworth of Wit." It 
explains also the mingling in his own plays of tawdry 
imitations from all the earlier styles with many hasty 
and superficial sketches of original motifs, ineffective 
in Greene's presentment, but requiring only the care- 
ful development of Shakespeare and other plagiarists 
of genius to become extraordinarily fruitful. "Friar 
Bacon" contains much which can only be understood 
either as a deliberate bait for vulgar popularity or an 
archaic survival from outworn styles. A spurious 
affinity to the mythological court comedy of Peele and 
Lyly is suggested by interlarding the speech of the 
peasant maid of Fressingfield with allusions to Phoebus 
and Semele, Paris, iEnon, and the vale of Troy. Much 
of the magical business, such as the spiriting of the 
Hostess of Henley and Friar Bungay through the air, 
and the conjuring rigid of swords and tongues, is little 
more than a copy from some of the most prosaic scenes 
of "Faustus"; while the final identification of the clown. 
Miles, with the old vice, and his dispatch to hell on the 
devil's back are still franker retrogressions to the low 



»08 THE TllDOU DIUMA 

•til loNt^l of the iiiltMliulf. All this extramxnis ami ill- 
tli^vstoil limit t>r, (oi,'rllior\\itli tho imforlunato allompt 
to aiKl llu* s|»tH'ious atlrai-lii>n ivf i'hi\»nu-Io liistory ti> a 
\voik o[ pmv iiuagiuutiou, confuses the issues of tlie 
play, ami iliNerls iittonlion from the strain i>f faiu'iful 
iiloalism Nvluih it dorives from tho pasti>ral ri>mam-e 
ami to whiih it owes its particular charm. By isolat- 
ing anil ilcvt^lopiiii;' this sptnial fcjilmv. Sliakt\Npoaix» 
brought into strong relief the merits appreliciulcil only 
suheouseiously by tlie readers of Greene. 

"The Scottish History of James IV." probably 
(iixvnc's latest i>lay, marks a i't)nsiilerable atlvance in 
style, but hanlly sliows any iinpwvement in its treat- 
ment of ilramatii* plot ami ch.aracler. The artificial 
mythological vcrbiiigc. a iu>tablc mannerism of the 
earlier plays, has been almost entirely supplantetl; but 
the author continues to ilcpciul for the sui'cess of llie 
(•omctly rather upon the inclusii>u of a givat variety of 
possible souix'es of inteivst than upon the harmonimis 
evolution i>f a singU^ theme. The main subjtH-t is ile- 
rivcil.with very substantial alteratii>ns. from an Italian 
novel i>f Cintliio ("lltvatommilhi." ^il iKhjuIc. 1). 
Vet the real merit of the ilrama i-ousists in the iilyllie 
story which evi»lves abi»ul the two heroines. lu>th em- 
boiliments of tl»e unworldly type, who li\c titul love, 
ivsist temptation, ov wamler In vlisguise thri>ugh a syl- 
van land of rt>inancc wholly tint ipodal ti> the world i»f 
chicanery and politics tenanttnl by tJie insurrectionary 
Sct^ttish luvrs, the classiial ])arasite. Ateukin. and the 
symlu>Iic!il Lawyer. Mcrch.aut. ami Divine of Ait \ . 
scene 4. The title of the piece and the thin political 
scenes, lacking equally in verity and verisimilitude, are 
tlishoncsl appeals to the temporary taste ft>r history 



IK )M AN TIC AND rASTOItAI. COMKDY m) 

pl/iyn. TlMy iiml.r «»iily IIk* ;ili)/lil<Nl, iiiipifji'tion ii|m)II 
I lie i<'ii<l<r, wli<» irii\i'iii\n'VH lli«" pliiy iniiiiily lor iU prc- 
Hrriliil ion of IIm- rutriiiiil i<' (if^iirr.M uii<i <'()iii|>|i*x lovo 
U(lv<Milill'cM (*r I >uri)l lien iiikI Mti. 

Oim «*xcn'M<'fiil cIciiM'iil ill IIiih iiuuWtiy tloMvvvt'M NoriKv 
wli/il. iiiorr Hy Mi|ml IkI ir roiiMiilcnilioii. In /i^/n'riiM-nl 
wil ii llir juiM-l i('«- (»!' Ky«l, (ir<'<'iM' Iihh m«'I, liis piny wil liiii 
n «lniiimli<' Iriiiiicwork, coimiHliii^ prin«*i|»iilly of Ilir 
(liiilo^nc of Olicroii, Kiii^ <>f l''iiii'i<*H iiiid llir iiii'uin 
llirnpjr Scol. lioliiiii, (i li/j;iirc p«Tlmp« ,iiijrf/«'Mlc<l l»y 
IMiiI.iii'cIi'm 'riiiioii. Am it, nIiiikJn, iU'iH itilnxliK-lory 
mill Icr oDVikIm ii)/iiiiiMl I Ik* iiiiily oT I li«* pliiy, iiixl iniikcH 
it only IIm- liJii'Wfr To «-ir<>(| Ijn- roiniiiil ic illusion ri'(|ni- 
H\\r to liic iippi'criiil iiMi ol IIm- niiiin plol.. Vil iIm- nlcu 
tliiil pi'onipl«-(| l!i<- jiixliipoMilion ol tli<- rairy I'.iiif^^ ihkI 
IIm- ,soiiif(| woililliiip; wji'i II l)oM oiM\ wliifli Sliiil'.*- 
Mpriir*' l)orrowf(| willi nolulilc nih'J'umm ill IIk' imo^I v<mi- 
liiroii.s of lii.s nxiiiiiit ic romrdirs, "A IVIiil:<iiiiiiiuT- 
Nif/lil.'H l)r«*uni," hikI ii^riiiii wIm'ii in "As Von l/ik<- II," 
In- iiiudr IIm- iiK^liiiiclioly .liupi«'N II (liriii/.cn of Ai<l<-n. 

A conipiiriMon of ".liunct IV" willi iln rloscsl Sliiikc- 
Hpnircim p/irnllrl will illiiMlriilc l.lir mil hit of I his kiml of 
<oiiM'<ly. InNlcMidor l.ryinf<, lik<;(in'<'ii<-, lo l«ii<l iciiliMl.i<r 
prol)jil»ilily to IIm- pnJpuMy fidilioiiM imill<-r of «Tol,ir 
romiincc l»y im ii<liiii.Hl iiicof Iio^mih liiMlory, Sliii.K<*Hp«*n,r<r 
<lio((M<*H I.Ik? i'onlriiry iillrrmil iv«' iiml fninkly llirows 
«lown Mm- lliiii Willi Mrpiuiil in^"; I In- world of fiiiicy from 
ptMf fiiiryliind. I'or lliis proci'diin- also (irccnc IiimI 
iiid<<-d llirown oiil ii Mind liiiil liy mukili)< iJu; mxiH of 
Itolian iictorM in the miiin drnitiii iih wt'll, Ixil I Ik* imio- 
viilion WHS in liis niMr iim im-n'rclivi* lis il was imri'ii- 
MoikmI. Sliiiiu'Mpi'iin*, on I In- ol licr liand, Ity lirini'.inc Imm 
OIjcioii iind 'riliuiia into IIm- fs'tilra! plol, iis lulors oil 



270 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

equal terms with the idylHc lovers, both waives the 
necessity of narrowly realistic motivation, and secures 
for his stage the dainty imaginary setting in which 
alone the delicate figures of ideal romance can appear 
to advantage. Doubtless the masque-like character of 
"A Midsummer-Night's Dream" encouraged Shake- 
speare to take bolder liberties with the law of nature 
than otherwise he would have attempted; but, through- 
out, his practice shows his denial of Greene's idea that 
an imaginary story can be benefited by a thin disguise 
of specious realism. The very titles of Shakespeare's 
most daring performances in romantic comedy — 
"A Midsummer-Night's Dream," "As You Like It," 
"Twelfth Night or What You Will," "The Winter's 
Tale" — seem meant to emphasize the fundamental 
axiom that dream figures can only be presented upon 
a visionary stage. 

Greene's greatest continuator in romantic comedy 
was, of course, Shakespeare. But several minor dramas 
of the day show how the elder poet's initiative affected 
his equals and inferiors, and illustrate very well the scope 
and possibilities of this type of comedy before Shake- 
speare had refined it into an instrument of sublime ir- 
regularity which only he himself has ever satisfactorily 
employed. The "Pleasant Commodie of faire Em the 
Millers daughter of Manchester: With the lone of Wil- 
liam the Conqueror," which seems to have been pro- 
duced between 1589 and 1591,* is an inartistic medley 

1 Lord Strange's servants, by whom the title-page of the earHest 
edition states the play to have been performed, first appear as an 
acting company in 1589. (For the origin of this company, see W. W. 
Greg, Hennlowe's Diary, ii, 71.) The posterior limit is indicated by 
the fact that two lines in Fair Em seem to be ridiculed in Greene's 
Farewell to Folly, 1591. 



ROMANTIC AND PASTORAL COMEDY 271 

of two plots in the two most popular current styles. 
One portion, developed entirely in the manner of the 
old heroic play, is a happy version of a French tragical 
story. It treats the love of William the Conqueror and 
the Marquis Lubeck for the princesses Blanche and 
Mariana, presenting the journey of the Conqueror in 
the guise of the errant knight Robert of Windsor to the 
court of Denmark in quest of the lady with whose image, 
displayed on Lubeck's shield at a tournament, he has 
fallen enamoured; depicting his subsequent change of 
passion, and his abduction of the one princess in the 
garments of the other, together with the armed pursuit 
of the royal father, and the final reconciliation of all 
parties. The second plot is, on the other hand, an 
imperfect attempt at pastoral romantic comedy, cen- 
tring about the Manchester Miller (really a valiant 
knight in disguise), his fair daughter, and the three 
courtiers who contest her love and prove their false- 
hood or fidelity amid these humble surroundings. 
The doubtful question of the relative priority of this 
play and "Friar Bacon" probably needs no discussion. 
I am unable to discover any trace of the particular 
connection which the late Professor Churton Collins ^ 
fancied that he detected between the two works. Nor 
does there appear to exist any substantial reason either 
for regarding "Fair Em" as an allegorical reflection 
of London stage conditions or for seeing in the allu- 
sions to local celebrities and landmarks an indication 
that the play was originally destined for presentation 
in Manchester. Rather, the probability seems over- 
whelming that these references were borrowed by the 
dramatist, with no obscurer purpose than the desire 
1 See Collins, Plays and Poems of Greene, ii, 4. 



272 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

of verisimilitude and specific detail, from the ballad or 
prose narrative upon which he based this portion of the 
play. In any case, "Fair Em" is far inferior to "Friar 
Bacon " as a romantic comedy. Its rustic scenes, though 
well enough articulated among themselves and not 
deficient in characterization, possess very little of the 
idyllic charm which Greene was able to impart, and 
which more than anything else gave this type of drama 
vital power at a time when the heroic play, equally 
"romantic" in a sense, had lost all true hold on the 
progressive theatre. 

One of the most immediate successors of Greene in 
the writing of romantic comedy was Anthony Mun- 
day, who concerned himself during the five or six years 
following Greene's death with several ventures in this 
style. The earliest of these works appears to have been 
" John a Kent and John a Cumber," a play preserved 
in a manuscript dated December, 1595, but not printed 
till the nineteenth century. Imitation of "Friar Bacon 
and Friar Bungay" seems clear in the choice of the 
subject with its diamond-cut-diamond theme of rival 
conjurors exploiting their powers in the attempt to 
advance or retard the progress of a complex love in- 
trigue. "John a Kent and John a Cumber" is a light- 
hearted piece, composed in very fair verse, and con- 
structed with a stiff symmetry which, though glaringly 
superficial, is yet not unworthy of the poet described by 
Meres as the "best plotter" among the comic writers 
of the age. In all the qualities which lend special charm 
to the romantic comedies of Greene and Shakespeare, 
however, Munday's play shows itself entirely deficient. 
Its plot is likely to impress the reader as thin and bar- 
ren. It lacks the varied richness of tone which, in spite 



ROMANTIC AND PASTORAL COMEDY 273 

of all their patent absurdities, raises both " Friar Bacon " 
and "James IV " above the suspicion of clap-trap. The 
twin heroines of "John a Kent," Sidanen and Marian, 
are mere lay figures, possessed neither of individual 
character, nor even of any conventional grace; and the 
four lovers are, if possible, even more completely with- 
out significance. Consequently, the romantic element 
in the play proves an almost total failure, and the sole 
interest hangs upon the two subsidiary threads of the 
contest between the magicians and the interpolated 
buffoonery of Turnop. 

Munday's curious play, "The Downfall of Robert, 
Earl of Huntington, afterward called Robin Hood," 
was purchased by Henslowe in February, 1598, for the 
use of the Lord Admiral's Company, by whom the 
edition of 1601 states it to have been acted. The un- 
necessary complexity of structure which very generally 
characterizes Elizabethan dramaturgy is particularly 
conspicuous in the "Downfall" and its sequel, "The 
Death of Robert, Earl of Huntington." In both plays 
the events depicted are separated by two removes 
from immediate actuality, since the main text is repre- 
sented as written by the poet Skelton, who, with other 
notabilities of the court of Henry VIII, rehearses it in 
view of an approaching performance before the King. 
Thus, casual interpolations in Skeltonical rime and 
critical discussions between the actors repeatedly dis- 
pel the illusion necessary to the main story; while the 
audience is rather unreasonably required to connect 
with each of the important figures on the stage two 
distinct personalities separated by three centuries and 
a half. At one moment we listen to the opinions of 
Skelton and Sir John Eltham, while the next instant 



274 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

we must associate with the same actors the words of 
Friar Tuck and Little John. 

The main plot of the "Downfall" is greatly confused. 
In combining the romantic theme with the historical 
story of Prince John's tyrannies, Munday was only 
following the example set by Greene's two great come- 
dies. It is hard, however, to hold the author excused, 
even in the light of Tennyson's similar practice, for the 
tasteless perversion which transforms the ideal yeoman, 
Robin Hood, and his Maid Marian into insipid repre- 
sentations of distressed nobility. Though the "Down- 
fall" shows considerable familiarity with the stories of 
such popular heroes as Robin Hood and the Pinner of 
Wakefield, the greenwood scenes certainly lack as a 
whole the charm and convincingness of atmosphere 
upon which the appeal of romantic comedy is mainly 
based. Yet this first of Munday's Robin Hood plays 
expresses not inadequately the cheery optimism of the 
type, and it even contains some few passages which are 
not unworthy of having influenced the nearly contem- 
poraneous "As You Like It." ^ Such, for example, is 
the pretty scene where Robin sleeps on a green bank 
with Marian strewing flowers upon him, while Mari- 
an's exiled and famished old father, Fitzwater, enters, 
to be refreshed and comforted. 

The second Robin Hood play, "The Death of Robert, 
Earl of Huntington . . . with the lamentable tragedy 
of chaste Matilda, his fair Maid Marian, poisoned at 
Dunmow by King John," belongs clearly to the type 
of history play rather than to romantic comedy. How- 

^ See A. H. Thorndikc's paper, "The Relation of As You Like It 
to Robin Hood Plays," Journal of Germanic Philology, iv (1902), 
59-69. 



ROMANTIC AND PASTORAL COMEDY 275 

ever, it was both produced and printed in the same year 
as the earlier part, with which it is closely connected by 
the common Skeltonical framework and by a series 
of prospective and retrospective allusions. The main 
reason for the striking difference between the two parts 
is doubtless the fact that the guiding hand in the con- 
struction of the "Death" was not Munday's, but that 
of a collaborator of very different taste; namely, Henry 
Chettle. Chettle was, indeed, paid by Henslowe for 
revising the earlier part about nine months after its 
original performance; but his contributions to that 
play do not appear to be of very great consequence or 
easily demonstrable.^ The "Death," however, every- 
where shows the light atmosphere of pastoral romance 
dissipated by the incompatible breath of gruesome sen- 
sationalism which marks the author of "Hoffman." 

The "Death" has no pretence to unity. The actual 
story of Robin ends in the poisoning of that hero at 
about the close of the first quarter of the play. The re- 
mainder is a confessed excrescence, carrying on the 
story of Matilda's woes and the sufferings of England 
under John in a manner suggestive of the most lurid of 
the early "histories." The precise decision concerning 
the authorship of the "Death" is obstructed by the 
fact of a revision subsequent to the original composi- 
tion, and by the probably intimate relationship of the 
play with a lost "Funeral of Richard Coeur de Lion" 
in which both Chettle and Munday collaborated with 
two other employees of Henslowe. It seems certain, 

^ The Reverend Ronald Bayne thinks that Chettle's revision of 
the Downfall "clearly consisted of the induction in which the play is 
set and the Skeltonical rimes," Cambridge History of English Litera- 
ture, V, 355. 



276 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

however, that the earlier scenes, in which Robin Hood 
still appears, belong no more to the species of romantic 
comedy than do the entirely non-pastoral scenes which 
follow. Romantic comedy always involves the tacit 
assumption of the impossibility of a tragic conclusion 
and always emphasizes atmosphere rather than specific 
incident. But throughout the play before us the atten- 
tion is held almost solely by spectacles of lurid crime or 
by morbid pictures of guilt and misery. The main 
"attractions" of the opening scenes consist in the per- 
fectly wanton and inartistic assassination of Robin and 
the highly colored sketch of the fiendish diabohsm of 
Doncaster. In the later, more historical scenes, the 
interest is concentrated upon similar objects: the 
hideous passion of John, hideously portrayed ; the 
Dantesque death of Lady Bruce and her son, starved 
in Windsor Tower; the pathetic end with which Ma- 
tilda meekly closes a long chapter of woes; and finally 
the sensational despair and suicide of John's impious 
tool, the murderer Brand. 

A later play, greatly superior to "Fair Em" and 
Munday's comedies, and much more clearly influenced 
by Greene's "Friar Bacon," is associated with "Fair 
Em" by an absurd ascription to Shakespeare. "The 
Merry Devil of Edmonton" is one of the happiest and 
most artistic among the minor works of its age. Regis- 
tered for publication in 1607, it is known to have en- 
joyed marked popularity on the stage three years ear- 
lier, and was presumably composed shortly before the 
end of Elizabeth's reign, — a dozen years after the 
production of "Friar Bacon." The two prominent at- 
tractions of the latter work — the figure of the bene- 
volent conjurer and the development of an idyllic 



ROMANTIC AND PASTORAL COMEDY 277 

love plot among the surroundings of an English wood- 
land landscape — are here blended with a good deal 
more harmony than in Greene's play; and they are 
combined with a humorously sympathetic portrayal of 
bourgeois types which owes an obvious debt to Shake- 
speare's treatment of the fraternity of Bottom. "The 
Merry Devil of Edmonton " is perhaps the best roman- 
tic comedy outside of Shakespeare. This play shows 
how, under rare favoring conditions, it is possible, in 
spite of the dicta of dramatic theory, to make truly 
eflFective on the stage the poetic treatment of a fanci- 
ful love story, though possessing no important measure 
either of psychological distinction or realistic import. 
Some of the happier Elizabethans succeeded thus 
in endowing with a permanent charm their responses 
to that irregular theatrical demand which again 
recently has enjoyed a brief hour of purely transitory 
acceptance in the vogue of the dramatized romantic 
novel. 

"The Merry Devil of Edmonton " has probably only 
a single rival among the non-Shakespearean romantic 
comedies of its decade. That it finds in "The Shoe- 
maker's Holiday " of Dekker; and it surpasses Dekker's 
play by reason of its superior homogeneity. "The 
Shoemaker's Holiday," one of the most attractive 
Elizabethan comedies, is also one of the most diflScult 
to bring into conformity with the rules of any distinct 
dramatic type. Like the "Old Fortunatus" of the 
same poet, it is based upon a mixture of pseudo-his- 
torical, romantic, and realistic elements, which will 
hardly bear analysis or separation. 

The absorbing interest in the love plot of "The Merry 
Devil of Edmonton" seems to have prevented the in- 



278 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

troduction of the magical business originally contem- 
plated by the author. The first scene, indeed, presents 
Fabell as a conventional mediaeval sorcerer lamenting 
in lines evidently inspired by Marlowe the expiration 
of his compact with the devil, and winning seven years' 
reprieve only by cheating the spirit that seeks his soul. 
Fabell 's actual services to the lovers, however, never 
pass the bounds of natural law; and the total impression 
of his figure — kindly, confident, and charitably wise 
— is rather anticipatory of Prospero than reminiscent 
of Faustus or Bacon. The main story, in picturing the 
triumph of youthful love over the designs of covetous 
parents, gives a freshened woodland version of a theme 
long popular with the imitators of Roman comedy. The 
bright idealistic treatment of Enghsh sylvan landscape 
reproduces the distinctive tone of Greene, who, in- 
flamed with the general patriotic ardor of the Armada 
era, likes always to make his pastoral and Utopian 
sketches redound to the credit of fair England. But in 
the portrayal of the four humorous village types, the 
deer-stealers. Smug, Banks, Blague, and Sir John, the 
author of the "Merry Devil" has added a not inhar- 
monious note of kindly realism which deepens and 
humanizes the romantic interest in a manner unknown 
to Greene and peculiarly characteristic of Shakespeare. 
The slightly anachronistic device of the convent to 
which the heroine is sent by the obstruction in the 
course of true love, and from which the timely inter- 
vention of her chosen suitor rescues her, is similar to 
the employment of the same stock motive in Friar 
Bacon. So, too, the central idea of the generous assist- 
ance of the less favored rival in effecting the lovers' 
happiness is a rationalized version of the hackneyed 



ROMANTIC AND PASTORAL COMEDY 279 

theme of magnanimity in love, which forms the main 
plot of Lyly's "Campaspe" and of "Friar Bacon," 
which Peele delicately ridiculed in "The Old Wives' 
Tale," and which Shakespeare reduced to absurdity by 
his unskilful employment in the last act of "The Two 
Gentlemen of Verona," | 

Any consideration of romantic comedy must culmi- 
nate in the study of Shakespeare. To this species, which 
derived from the pastoral narrative its primary view of 
life, belong six of that poet's works, — two of the earli- 
est period ("The Two Gentlemen of Verona" and "A 
Midsummer-Night's Dream ") ; two comedies of middle 
hfe ("As You Like It" and "Twelfth Night"); and 
two of his latest performances ("The Winter's Tale" 
and "The Tempest"); while "Cymbehne," "The 
Merchant of Venice," and the genuine portion of 
"Pericles" display very considerable traces of the* 
same influence. 

The significance and distinct character of the strain 
of idealistic fancy which thus manifests itself inter- 
mittently through the entire life-work of Shakespeare 
have seldom been adequately stressed in appreciations 
either of the individual poet or of his dramatic milieu. 
The romantic comedies just mentioned are the most 
notable manifestations during the period extending 
from Greene's death to Shakespeare's retirement (1592- 
1612) of the centrifugal tendency indispensable to the 
preservation of the balance of poetry against the in- 
creasingly powerful local and introspective bent of the 
time. It is greatly to be deplored that the undiscrim- 
inating extension of the Elizabethan title to the litera- 
ture of the earlier Stuart reigns has led to a general 
ignoring of the radical difiFerence in tone between the 



280 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

work of the early seventeenth century and that of the 
final quarter of the sixteenth. 

The truth is that the last of the "Elizabethans" was 
not Shirley, but Shakespeare. The gulf which the ac- 
cident of history created between the age of Charles I 
and that of Dryden separates far less opposed concep- 
tions of life and art than that, centring about 1603, 
which distinguishes the prevailingly idealistic attitude 
represented by the "Faery Queene" and "Shepherds' 
Calendar," "Tamburlaine," "A Midsummer-Night's 
Dream," and the "Arcadia" from the predominant 
self-concern of the most characteristic productions of 
the next generation, — Jonson's and Middlcton's real- 
istic comedies and Donne's metaphysical poems. The 
genuine Elizabethan spirit passed with the passing of 
the peculiar imaginative exhilaration and the substi- 
tution of the microscopic treatment of contemporary 
whims and trifles for the earlier ambition to body forth 
"the forms of things unknown." 

Shakespeare nowhere shows himself the friend of 
uncompromising realism. All his sketches of common 
life, though brilliantly accurate, are both universalized 
and interpreted by their romantic setting. Moreover, 
in the six comedies particularly enumerated above, he 
puts himself into direct and — in the case of the later 
examples, at least — into conscious opposition to the 
practical trend of the day, appealing almost solely to 
the fancy, and ignoring the realities and probabilities 
of the humdrum world to an extent unequalled perhaps 
in any other successful stage play. Three of these com- 
edies — "The Two Gentlemen of Verona," "As You 
Like It," and "The Winter's Tale " — are strict drama- 
tizations of pastoral romance, while "Twelfth Night" 



ROMANTIC AND PASTORAL COMEDY 281 

comes partly from the same source. The other two are, 
significantly, the happiest and most enthusiastic of 
Shakespeare's efforts at original plot construction. It 
is probably no accident that in this group of comedies 
also we approach closest to Shakespeare's individual 
self and find his most personal observations on the 
great problems of life and death, on love and marriage, 
poetry, music, and the world. • Here, far more truly 
than in the sonnets or the great tragedies, Shakespeare 
unlocked his heart; and the dramatic irregularities of 
this group of plays, often slighted or slurred over, indi- 
cate, not carelessness simply, but hardened preference 
and reason. 

The two distinguishing features of this set of come- 
dies — features inherited from the pastoral novel and 
accentuated rather than reduced by Shakespeare — 
are the absence of the fundamental dramatic conflict 
which forms regularly the backbone both of comedy 
and tragedy, and the removal of practical logic from 
the control of character and emotion. Most of the pas- 
sions in these plays are of like nature with the childish 
affection described in "The Two Noble Kinsmen" (I, 
iii, 69-74) : — 

" But I 

And she I sigh and spoke of were things innocent, 
Lou'd for we did, and like the Elements 
That know not what, nor why, yet doe efifect 
Rare issues by their operance, our soules 
Did so to one another ! " 

To compare such works with comedies of intrigue 
and character conflict, like "Much Ado About No- 
thing," "The Taming of the Shrew," "Measure for 
Measure," or even with slightly more idealized speci- 



282 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

mens such as "The Merchant of Venice" and "All 's 
Well that Ends Well"; or to group all together in the 
same general category that includes also the produc- 
tions of Congreve, Goldsmith, and Sheridan, is to sub- 
mit those we are considering to false and impossible 
standards of judgment and totally to misapprehend 
the author's aim and method. 

"The Two Gentlemen of Verona " is an experimental 
early work hardly meriting special attention except for 
the promise of broad sympathy in the scene which 
brings together and contrasts the emotions of Proteus 
and Silvia, the host, and the disguised Julia.^ "A 
Midsummer-Night's Dream" shows itself, indeed, an 
accomplished masterpiece in its development of a 
somewhat frivolous plot and in its treatment of the 
fairy machinery and the bourgeois types. The han- 
dhng of the romantic figures remains, however, vague 
and hazy, the most notable advance appearing in the 
superior distinctness of the pair of heroines when con- 
trasted with those in " The Two Gentlemen of Verona," 
and the ability to portray in Theseus a convincingly 
noble gentleman. 

The other comedies of the class all belong, however, 
to the period of maturity, and all contain characters 
which rank among the most memorable and beloved 
in Shakespeare. Such are the figures of the four hero- 
ines, Rosalind, Viola, Perdita, and Miranda, together 
with the closely related Imogen and Marina of "Cym- 
beline" and "Pericles" respectively, and the diverse 
male trio: Touchstone, Prospero, and Jaques. Any 
comparison of these characters with the principal per- 

1 Act IV, scene 4. For an admirable appreciation of this scene, 
see Professor Dowden, Shaksperes Mind and Art, ed. 1901, 344. 



ROMANTIC AND PASTORAL COMEDY 283 

sons of the other great dramas of Shakespeare — with 
Shylock, Falstaff, lago, Hamlet, Lear, Benedick, Bea- 
trice, or Isabella, for example — will show what re- 
strictions must be made before the former can be justly 
praised for their truth to life or their illustration of 
human psychology. Shakespeare has nowhere por- 
trayed with more delicate intuition the beauty and 
nobility of which mortal man is capable than in the 
great figures of these romantic comedies; but he di- 
verges from his usual practice in showing character 
static rather than progressive, — in working, as it were, 
in the midst of a vacuum, and creating his Rosalind and 
Orlando, Prospero and Miranda full-grown, instead of 
letting them evolve their own character out of the mesh 
of circumstance and the cross purposes of worldly en- 
vironment. The comedies dating from the close of the 
century present in Rosalind, Celia, Orlando, Olivia, Or- 
sino, and Viola rather etherealized human beings in an 
imaginary setting. The last plays go farther and peo- 
ple a more fanciful world with hauntingly exquisite 
dream figures incapable of life on any earth we know. 
In the rarefied air of these plays individual respon- 
sibility, the sheet-anchor of ordinary dramatic art, 
weighs very light. The early comedies, "The Two 
Gentlemen of Verona" and "A Midsummer-Night's 
Dream," had dealt trivially with unpunished infideli- 
ties and impossible revolutions in love. "As You Like 
It" shows us the villain Oliver assuming in a trice the 
role of happy lover and the wicked Duke Frederick 
turning hermit at a word; while in the last plays the 
easy contemptuous pardon of Alonzo, Sebastian, and 
the odious Leontes leaves the reader thirsting for 
poetic justice. There is more in all this than that care- 



284 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

lessness or indifference, which occasionally, as for exam- 
ple in "Measure for Measure," leads the poet to juggle 
with the strict balance of debit and credit in the in- 
terest of a harmonious conclusion. 

The pastoral novelists had intentionally laid the scene 
of their romances in Utopia; and Shakespeare, in the 
plays which he developed in their manner, steadily 
heightened the gracious unreality of the setting. The 
result is that lofty serenity and unworldliness which 
animate the last plays and make them appeal forever 
less as dramatic pictures of life than as the ultimate 
achievements in high romance. But out of the special 
excellences of this type of play there arise as inevitable 
corollaries certain limitations. The supreme dramatist 
of the world can develop human character as it is known 
to us only out of the causes which in actual life evince 
it : the sublunary conflicts of worldling with worldling, 
and the action upon the individual of the tangled web 
of mundane duty and aspiration. The presentation of 
such conditions would be repugnant, of course, to the 
idyllic environment in which move the main figures of 
"As You Like It " and "Twelfth Night "; any attempt 
at it would be totally subversive of the still rarer, 
vaguer atmosphere of "The Winter's Tale" and "The 
Tempest," — and this Shakespeare has understood 
better than his critics. The difference between Perdita 
and such creatures of the real world as Beatrice and 
Desdemona is the difference between inspired and re- 
vealed psychology. It would, perhaps, be difficult to 
decide which type is the more beautiful; but the whole 
history of drama shows the former to be infinitely 
harder of presentation. Even in Shakespeare's treat- 
ment, subordinate characters like Celia and Olivia — 



ROMANTIC AND TASTORAL COMEDY 285 

much more, Oliver and Sebastian — fare somewhat 
badly on a stage which permits little use of the minutioe 
of realistic differentiation. And it is natural also that 
the portraits of the heroines, where the delineation of 
mere mood and quiescent character can be made most 
effective, succeed better in general than those of the 
heroes (Orlando, Orsino, P^lorizel, and Ferdinand) from 
whom the reader is inclined to demand more concrete 
exhibitions of energy and action. 

To infer a radical incompatibility between the charm- 
ing unreality of these romantic comedies and the 
searching psychological analyses which his other great 
dramas present would indicate a misconception of 
Shakespeare's genius only second to that involved in 
the confusion of all under the same arbitrary definition. 
The creation of a universe of visionary loveliness where 
nobly ideal figures move freely and happily, relieved 
from the constraint and compromise of actual society, 
was the necessary correlative in a well-poised imagina- 
tion to that close study of human souls in the toils 
of circumstance to which the tragedies and more serious 
comedies testify. Rosalind and Viola belong to the 
same period, temporally and spiritually, with Brutus 
and Portia, Hero, Don John, and Troilus. So, too, the 
heightened unworldliness of the great figures in "The 
Winter's Tale," "The Tempest," and "Cymbeline" 
is the natural complement and corrective of the pain- 
fully intense absorption in real life and real character 
which produced the immediately antecedent burst of 
tragedy. This power of refreshing the fancy in the realm 
of beautiful impossibilities was the quality which kept 
sweet Shakespeare's judgments of the actual world. 
Not only are the romantic plays indispensable to a 



286 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

properly rounded appreciation of the poet's genius; 
they even offer the necessary explanation of the broad 
impartial wisdom and permanent truth of his deepest 
probings into character. It was the possession of the 
vein of pure fancy to which Shakespeare gives unre- 
strained scope in his valedictory works of "The 
Winter's Tale" and "The Tempest," that raises the 
complex psychological demonstrations of "Hamlet," 
"Lear," "Othello," and "Macbeth" high above the 
level of contemporary realism. Just so, on the other 
hand, the accuracy of his impressionistic, inductive 
sketches of Rosalind and Miranda is solely the result 
of the careful analyses of actual psychic conditions 
evidenced, for example, in the characterization of Bea- 
trice and Benedick or the portrayal of Cordelia's re- 
finement by suffering. Thus, the fact that Shakespeare 
has ventured, in the four mature plays which I have 
been especiallj^ considering, to depict on the stage more 
purely fanciful beings and circumstances than any 
other dramatist has ever successfully presented, instead 
of being exceptional or surprising, is the direct conse- 
quence of his portrayal elsewhere of the most searching 
studies of human character known to literature. The 
unsoured and unflinching exposition of the ruin of noble 
natures like Brutus, Hamlet, Othello, Lear, and Mac- 
beth before the insidious and all-testing contact of the 
world was possible only to a disposition rich and sensi- 
tive enough to find relief in a balancing world of fancy, 
where perfect beauty might flourish without the pains 
of evolution, and nobility expand itself without conflict. 
One deep mark the poet's sad experience of life, 
recorded by the tragedies and dark comedies, left upon 
his romantic plays lib the increasing perception of the 



ROMANTIC AND PASTORAL COMEDY 287 

essential impossibility of the dream world wliiclr the 
latter picture. The Arcadian environment, which in 
"The Two Gentlemen of Verona" and "A Midsummer 
Night's Dream" is hardly distinguished consciously 
from reality, and which "As You Like It " and "Twelfth 
Night" present with cheerful conviction, is in the last 
plays removed to the domain of the confessedly unreal 
by the wistfulness of its treatment and the blackness of 
the actual world against which it is opposed. On a 
stage which had already descended far toward crass 
sensationalism on the one hand and morbid realism on 
the other, "The Tempest" appeared as the last strong 
protest of the earlier idealism, and it has good claim 
to be regarded as the final genuine expression of the 
proper Elizabethan spirit. 

Few terms or definitions can be made to hold good 
unreservedly for Shakespeare. The idyllic atmosphere 
inherited from pastoral romance inspires scenes of 
many of the plays not here specifically considered, 
refining their effects and giving them a charm not born 
of realistic accuracy. So, again, in the six romantic 
comedies, 'par excellence, the poet does not altogether 
lose touch with the standards and interests of the outer 
world. The mingling of realism and romance is most 
evenly carried out in "Twelfth Night." Here, behind 
the lUyrian landscape and the figures of Viola, Olivia, 
Orsino, and Sebastian, there appears a solid English 
background upon which Shakespeare repeats in Sir 
Toby and Aguecheek the sturdy mundane comedy of 
Falstaff and Slender, and piques on Malvolio his spite 
against militant Puritanism very much as in " Hamlet " 
he uses the stage of Denmark to unburden himself 
concerning current theatrical disputes. In "Twelfth 



288 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Night " the two worlds are very clearly distinguished. 
The realistic scenes appear through the filmy main- 
plot like actual figures behind a painted tissue curtain. 
The two atmospheres, constantly contiguous, can never 
be said to blend. And this necessity of defining the 
real from the unreal accoinits largely for the absence 
of responsibility and retribution in romantic comedy. 
Sir Toby is too full-bodied a sinner to be punished for 
his breaches of Illyrian etiquette; and the dainty, vi- 
sionary setting of "As You Like It" and "The Tem- 
pest" would never bear too heavy a stress on the 
worldly depravity of Oliver. Alonzo, or Antonio. 

After Shakespeare, the dramatic imitation of pasto- 
ral romance became a dead convention maintained for 
the most part by the weaker poets and productive of 
the cheapest melodramatic efi'ects. The freshness of tone 
which lends this t>'pe of drama its distinctive charm 
in the true Elizabethan examples had small place in the 
intellectual endowment of the Stuart playwrights. One 
may well feel it ground for congratulation that the 
limits of this work remove the necessity of tracing the 
line of anticlimax through the various paltry plagiarisms 
from Sidney's "Arcadia" and Greene's "Menaphon," 
which commenced with Day's "Isle of Gulls" (1605) 
and ended with the flotsam and jetsam published after 
the Restoration or left to moulder in manuscript.^ 

The Italian pastoral drama of such writers as Tasso 
and Gunrini was, during the strict Elizabethan period, 
far less important as a dramatic source than the prose 
romance. The Italian dramatic pastoral is variously 

1 An oxcvUent discussion of this subject will be found in W. W. 
Grcg"s Pastoral Poclry and Pastoral Drama. 



ROMANTIC AND PASTORAL COMEDY 289 

reckoned to date from the appearance of the "Favola 
d'Orfco" of Agnolo PoHziano, acted at the Mantuan 
court in 1471, and from Agostino Beccari's stricter 
representative of the type in "II Sacrifizio," first pro- 
duced at Ferrara in 1554. The full possibilities of the 
species were manifested in the "Aminta," written in 
1572-1573 byTorquatoTasso, then twenty -eight years 
of age, and printed in 1581. An English translation by 
Abraham Fraunce was published in "The Countess of 
Pembroke's Ivy-Church" a decade later (1591). The 
chief rival of Tasso in this branch of art was a fellow 
courtier, Battista Guarini, whose "Pastor Fido" ap- 
peared in 1590, having been completed and probably 
acted in 1585. In 1591, this play and the "Aminta" 
were both published in the original Italian by John 
Wolfe for the benefit of London readers, and in 1602 
an English version of the former was dedicated by an 
unknown translator to Sir Edward Dymock. 

The "Pastor Fido" is a much longer, more com- 
plex, and even more artificial production than Tasso's 
"Aminta"; and it must be regarded as considerably 
inferior to the latter, though its elaborate development 
of the machinery of mistaken identity, mysterious 
prophecy, and laws and counter-laws against lovers 
made it for later writers a sort of compendium and 
model of pastoral intrigue. The execution of the 
"Aminta" is simple and beautiful. There is little true 
dramatic action, and the characters are conceived in 
the silly and prurient tone of the Latin "golden age" 
tradition. However, Tasso's piece is saved from coarse- 
ness by its grace and from mawkishness by the presence 
of a true and delicate sense of humor. The fiinal chorus 
of the play, which I quote in Leigh Hunt's admirable 



290 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

translation, repeats with almost the gracious irony of 
Chaucer himself the touch by which that master of 
raillery tempers the excess of sentiment in his "Clerk's 
Tale": — 

" I know not whether all the bitter toil, 

With which this lover to his purpose kept. 

And served, and loved, and sighed, and wept. 

Can give a perfect taste 

To any sweet soever at the last: 

But if indeed the joy 

Come dearer from annoy, 

I ask not, Love, for my delight 

To reach that beatific height: 

Let others have that perfect cup: 

Me let my mistress gather up 

To the heart where I would cling. 

After short petitioning." ^ 

It may possibly be debated whether the earliest 
English examples of pastoral comedy, plays of Latin 
influence hke "Gallathea" and "The Arraignment of 
Paris," owe a subsidiary debt to Tasso. In any case 
they cannot owe a great deal. The general introduc- 
tion of the Italian pastoral play — always a courtly 
type — was due to the same group of literary exquisites 
who attempted the establishment of another aristo- 
cratic species in their imitations of Garnier's tragedy. 
The translation of the " Aminta" in a volume inscribed 
to the Countess of Pembroke has been mentioned, and 
the first original English experiments in the same genre 
were the work of the most gifted of Lady Pembroke's 
followers, Samuel Daniel. All of these comedies fall 
without the limits of Elizabeth's reign, and few of 
them deserve on their own account more than passing 
* Amynias, A Tale oj the Woods, trans. Leigh Hunt. 



ROMANTIC AND PASTORAL COMEDY 291 

notice. Daniel's first effort in the pastoral style was 
published in 1606 with the title: "The Queenes Arcadia, 
A Pastorall Trage-comedie presented to her Maiestie 
and her Ladies, by the Vniuersitie of Oxford in Christs 
Church, in August last, 1605." The play deals in a 
somewhat original, if cumbrous, way with the disorder 
produced in an Arcadian shepherd community by the 
wiles of two types of worldly corruption, Colax and 
Techne. With the usual pastoral machinery is coni- 
bined some not quite contemptible Jonsonian comedy, 
notably in the speeches of Dr. Alcon, the Quacksalver, 
who addresses the shepherdess Daphne in the following 
travesty of medical and alchemistic language : — 

" Welcome, faire nimph, come let me try your pulse. 
I cannot blame you t' hold your selfe not well. 
Something amiss, quoth you, here 's all amiss, 
Th' whole Fabrick of your selfe distempered is, 
The Systole, and Dyastole of your pulse. 
Do shew your passions most hystericall. 
It seemes you haue not very careful bene 
T' observe the prophilactick regiment 
Of your own body, so that we must now 
Descend vnto the Therapeutical 
That so we may preuent the syndrome 
Of symtomes, and may afterwards apply 
Some analepticall Elexipharmacum, 
That may be proper for your maladie." 

Daniel's second and last effort in emulation of the 
Italian pastoral play is "Hymen's Triumph," acted at 
court in lOl^, and published in the following year. This 
work, considerably simpler and more original than the 
former, brings us well into the middle of the Jacobean 
period and directs the attention to the more independ- 
ent shepherd plays of this epoch. Of the last, only 



292 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

two justify mention here as obvious survivals of an 
earlier spirit. In "The Faithful Shepherdess" (1609), 
Fletcher has reproduced the thin and bloodless pasto- 
ral world of Guarini with a freshness which gives the 
play much of the delicacy, though nothing of the sweet 
charm, of the Elizabethan romantic comedies. In his 
beautiful fragment of "The Sad Shepherd "Ben Jon- 
son has proposed with a Titanic daring, which piques 
the curiosity and again suggests the warmer earlier era, 
to blend the abstract types of Italian pastoralism with 
the red-blood figures of Robin Hood romance. Jonson's 
torso, however, is more in the nature of an untried 
enterprise than a dramatic achievement; and it must 
always, perhaps, have shown more kinship with the 
masque than with convincing human drama. "The 
Faithful Shepherdess," for all its beauty, was a noto- 
rious failure; and lacking warmth of feeling as it does, 
would be so on any stage. The other plays of the same 
type, not infrequent in the first two Stuart reigns, are 
one and all devoid of dramatic life. They are the hard 
and cold crystallizations from a gradually petrifying 
drama of that fervent ideality which informed all the 
most characteristic Elizabethan works, and produced, 
not merely the distinctively romantic comedies, but 
also the charming shepherd scenes scattered like oases 
in the midst of plays otherwise filled with the crash of 
matter and the wreck of worlds. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

GENERAL DISCUSSION 

Greg, "W. W., Pastoral Poetr;/ and Pastoral Drama. A Liter- 
art/ Inquiry with special Reference to the Pre-Restoration Stage 



ROMANTIC AND PASTORAL COMEDY 293 

in England, 1906. Elaborated from " The Pastoral Drama 

on the Elizabethan Stage," Cornhill Magazine, 1899. 
Koeppel, E., Studien zur Geschichte der italienischen Novelle in , 

der englischen Litteratur des 16 Jahrhunderts, Quellen und 

Forschungen, Ixx, 1892. 
' Laidler, Josephine, " A History of Pastoral Drama in England 

• until 1700," Engl. Stud., xxxv (1905), 193-259. 
_ Smith, Homer, " Pastoral Influence in the English Drama," 

Puhl. Mod. Lang. Assoc, 1897. 
Thorn^ike, A. H., "The Pastoral Element in the English 
- Drama before 1605," Mod. Lang. Notes, xiv (1900). 

INDIVroUAL TEXTS 

Greene, Egbert : Dramatic Works, edited by A. Dyce, 1831, 
1861, 1879 ; A. B. Grosart, 1881-86 ; J. C. Collins, 1905; 
T. H. Dickinson, Mermaid edition, 1909. 
Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. " As it was plaid by her 
Maiesties seruants. Made by Robert Greene Maister of 
Arts," 1594. Other editions 1599 ?, 1630, 1655. Reprinted, 
J. P. Collier, Dodsley, yin, 1825; A. W. Ward, Old English 
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The Scottish History of James the Fourth, slain at 
Flodden. ♦' Written by Robert Greene, Maister of Arts," 
1598. Reprinted, J. M. Manly, Specimens, ii, 1897. Discus- 
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(Spurious) George a Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield, 
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British Drama, i, 1810. Discussion : O. Mertins, " Robert 
Greene und ' the play of George-a-Greene, the Pinner of 
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of Wakefield," Sh. Jb., xxvii (1892), 192 ff. 
Fair Em, the Miller's Daughter of Manchester. "With 
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publiquely acted ... by the right honourable the Lord 
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Shakspere, ii, 1878; C. Warnko and L. Proescholdt, 1883; 



294 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

A. F. Ilopkinson, 1895 ; C. F. T. Brooke, The Shakespeare 
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MuNDAY, Anthony : John a Kent and John a Cumber. Pre- 
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The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntington, "After- 
ward called Robin Hood of nierrie Sherwodde with his loue 
to chaste Matilda, the Lord Fitzwaters daughter afterwardes 
his faire Maide Marian. Acted by the Right Honourable the 
Earle of Notingham, Lord high Admirall of England, his 
seruants," 1001. Reprinted, J. P. Collier, 1828. 
The Death of Robert, Earl of Huntington ..." with the 
lamentable Tragedie of chaste Matilda, his faire maide 
Marian, poysoned at Dunmowe by King lohn." Acted by 
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in Hazlitt's Dodsley, viii, 1874. Henry Chettle was respon- 
sible for a revision of the earlier drama, and was part 
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of Huntington," Erlangen," 1897 ; A. H. Thorndike, " The 
Relation of As You Like It to the Robin Hood Plays," Jrl. 
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The Merry Devil of Edmonton. "As it hath beene sundry 
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Hopkinson, 1891; H. "Walker, Temple Dramatists, 1897; C. 
F. T. Brooke, The Shakespeare Apocrypha, 1908. For discus- 
sion, see bibliography to The Shakespeare Apocrypha. 
Dekker, Thomas : Old Fortunatus, 1600. 
The Shoemaker's Holiday, 1600. 

For bibliography of these plays, see p. 350. 
The Thracian Wonder. First printed by Francis Kirkman in a 
volume entitled Two New Playes, 1661, and there stated to be 
" Written by John Webster and William Rowley." Reprinted, 
Works of John Webster, A. Dyce iv, 1830 ; W. Hazlitt, iv, 
1897. Discussion: J. Q. Adams, Jr., Mod. Phil., ui (1906); 



ROMANTIC AND PASTORAL COMEDY 295 

J. Le Gay Brereton, Engl. Stud., xxxvii (1907) ; Mod. Lang. 
Review, ii (1906), reprinted in " Elizabethan Drama. Notes 
and Studies," 1909. 
The Weakest Goeth to the Wall, 1600. Another edition, 
1618. Reprinted, W. Hazlitt, Dramatic Works of John Web- 
ster, vol. iv, 1897. 
Shakespeare, William : The Two Gentlemen of Verona. 
First printed in the 1023 Folio. 

A Midsummer-Night's Dream, 1600 (printed for Thomas 
Fisher). Reprinted for James Roberts (in 1619?) with the 
fraudulent date, 1600. 
The Merchant of Venice. " J. R. for Thomas Heyes," 1600. 
Reprinted (in 1619?), J. Roberts, with fraudulent date, 1600. 
As You Like It. First printed in the 1623 Folio. 
Twelth Night. « •« " " " " 

Cymbeline. " " «' " " " 

The Winter's Tale. " " " " " " 

The Tempest. " " " " " " 

Pericles, Prince of Tyre, " With the true Relation of the 
whole Historie, aduentures, and fortunes of the said Prince 
... As it hath been diners and sundry times acted by his 
Maiesties Seruants, at the Globe on the Banck-side. By 
William Shakespeare," 1609 (two issues), 1611, 1619, 1630 
(two issues), 1635. Reprinted, with six uncanonical plays in 
certain copies of the third Shakespeare Folio, dated 1664, 
and in the Fourth Folio, 1685. 

PASTORAL PLAYS AFTER THE ITALIAN MODEL 

A. Translations op Italian Pastoral Drama 

Tasso,Torquato : Aminta. Translated by Abraham Fraunce in 
The Countess of Pembroke's Ivychurch, 1591. Another Trans- 
lation by John Reynolds, 1628. 

GuARiNi, Battista : II Pastor Pido : « OrThe faithfull Shep- 
heard. Translated out of Italian into English," 1602. The 
identity of the translator is uncertain. 

B. Original Dramas in Similar Vein 

Daniel, Samuel (For a list of Daniel's collected works, see 
p. 225 f) : The Queene's Arcadia. " A Pastorall Trage- 



296 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

comedie presented to her Maiestie (King James's queen) and 
her Ladies, by the Vniuersitie of Oxford in Christs Church, 
In August last. 1605." Printed 1606. Reprinted in Daniel's 
" Certaiue Small Workes," 1607, and in later editions of his 
works. 

Hymen's Triumph. " A Pastorall Tragicomsedie. Presented 
at the Queenes Court," 1615. Reprinted in " The Whole 
Workes of Samuel Daniel," 1623 and later editions. 

Fletcher, John : The Faithful Shepherdess. Ed. n. d. (ca. 
1610). Reprinted 1629, 1634, 1656, 1665. Included in the Sec- 
ond Beaumont and Fletcher Folio, 1679, and later editions. 

JoNSON, Benjamin : The Sad Shepherd, " Or, A Tale of Robin 
Hood." Edition, dated 1641, included in the Second Jonson 
Folio, 1640. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE HISTORY PLAT 

Certain peculiar conditions of popular taste and the- 
atrical expediency during the last dozen years of the 
sixteenth century resulted in the evolution by the side 
of the two regular branches of dramatic poetry of a 
third species, recognized in the tripartite division on 
the title-page of the 1623 Shakespeare, "Mr, William 
Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies," and 
always since respected in the criticism of the drama 
of this period. The term "history play" is difficult of 
precise theoretic limitation; and, in practice, the differ- 
entiation of the strict members of this new type from 
those plays on historical subjects which follow the more 
conservative rules of comedy or tragedy is a task ap- 
proaching impossibility. Works such as the two parts 
of "Henry IV" and the "Henry V" of Shakespeare 
prove sufficiently the right of the history play to con- 
sideration as an independent literary form. Yet it is 
quite impossible to exclude from such consideration 
other plays which accord wholly, like "Richard III," 
or almost wholly, like "Richard II," with the strictest 
rules of tragedy; while any ambitious discussion of the 
genre, unless based on sane definitions, is in danger of 
losing itself hopelessly in the attempt to follow such 
quasi-historical will-o'-the-wisps as "George a Greene" 
and "James IV." The collective treatment of all Eliza- 
bethan plays which happen to present historical figures 
may perhaps have a curious interest, but is hardly more 



298 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

susceptible of critical justification or more explanatory 
of actual facts than wouKl ho a groupiiii^ based on the 
locality of the play's action or the nationality of its 
hero. 

Any adequate understanding of the class of history 
plays seems to require the clear recognition of two pre- 
liminary facts: first, that many of the finest historical 
dramas may possess either not at all or only in small 
degree the irregularities of structure and tone which 
mark the class as a whole for separate discussion; and, 
second, that these special Elizabethan irregularities 
may manifest themselves in the treatment of foreign as 
well as native history. There are, for example, a number 
of points of view from which Marlowe's "Tambur- 
lainc" and "Massacre at Paris" illustrate better than 
tlie same poet's "Edward II " what is really significant 
in the Elizabethan interpretation and dramatic pre- 
sentation of history. 

The especial vogue of the history play during the last 
years of Elizabeth has been referred in the first sen- 
tence above to two causes: an unusual public interest 
in the matters treated in such plays; and 'particular 
stage conditions which toward the close of the century 
greatly stinnilated the demand for dramas constructed 
on the loose and facile pattern usual to this type. Two 
of the most potent factors in the Elizabethan literary 
revival were the high development of national con- 
sciousness and the correlative growth of interest in for- 
eign political history. Concurrently, there evolved during 
the course of the century a patriotic feeling of national 
solidarity and a lively realization of that outer world in 
which England as a world power must play her part. 
Thus, as we trace the steady rise of English national 



TIIE niSTORY PLAY 299 

consciousness, wc can trace also the increase in the 
value set upon foreign travel and the mastery of foreign 
tongiies, and the growing skill in observing and sketch- 
ing the predominant traits of other peoples.^ The l^ib- 
liographical evidence for this double trend of popular 
interest lies in the fact that such books as the Chroni- 
cles of Ilolinshed, Hall, and Stow, Lord Berners's trans- 
lation of Froissart, the versified biographies of "The 
Mirror for Magistrates,", and North's translation of 
Plutarch's Lives rank among the costliest, most elabo- 
rate, and most broadly disseminated productions of 
the Tudor press. Subjects like the progress of the 
Ottoman Empire, the careers of the great Tartar con- 
querors, Tamerlane and Genghiz Khan, and the recent 
history of France and Italy were treated in such an 
infinity of versions that it is frequently a matter of the 
greatest difficulty to ascertain the particular source to 
which the Elizabethan poet resorted. Furthermore, 
the registers of the Stationers' Company and the cata- 
logues of old libraries teem with the titles of prose tracts 
and ballad broadsides issued incessantly for the pur- 
pose of keeping the masses of the people aw /ai7 with the 
latest political developments and accidents of Europe. 
The deep excitement and triumphant exhilaration of 
the Armada year (1588) brought into a definite stream 
these eddying currents of national and cosmopolitan 
feeling, and had the effect of endowing the actualities 
of historic incident and character — particularly when 
they had an English application — with an attractive 

* For illustrations of the interest felt in the oomparison of na- 
tional peeuliarities, see Thomas Lord Cromwell, III, iii, 68-85; Hey- 
wood's // You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody, part ii (ed. 1851, 
126); Merchant of Venice, I, ii. 



300 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

power which for some years made the vulgar public 
eagerly willing to condone any artistic irregularity in 
the mode of their presentment. 

It chanced that the period of greatest general interest 
in the narratives of history coincided with an era of 
extreme difficulty for playwrights and theatre man- 
agers. The sudden increase in the number of theatres 
between 1590 and 1600/ and the necessity of satisfy- 
ing a practically unlimited public from the resources 
of an art which had only just adapted itself to local 
conditions, produced an abnormal demand for new 
plays which continually threatened to outrun the possi- 
ble supply.' The diary of Philip Henslowe, manager of 
a theatrical company which acted usually in competi- 
tion with that of Shakespeare, shows how the dramatic 
shortage, incident largely to the very brief runs of the 
day, was awkwardly met by the employment of a num- 
ber of literary hacks upon the hasty completion of a 
single play. Under such unpromising conditions, to 
which the better managed company of Shakespeare 
and Burbage seems comparatively seldom to have had 
recourse, little could be hoped in the way either of 
structural homogeneity or imaginative content. It was 
necessary to select a theme which possessed an inherent 
popular interest and which would admit of piecemeal 
treatment. The dramatization of history was generally 
found the readiest and most acceptable field for such 
rapid improvisation. The great majority of recorded 

^ The Rose Theatre is first mentioned as in use in 1592, though it 
may have been constructed as early as 1587. (Cf . W. W. Greg, Ilens- 
loipes Diary, ii, 44 ff.) The Swan and Blackfriars were occupied about 
1596. The Globe was built in 1599, the Fortune in 1600; and a private 
theatre, like that at Blackfriars, was opened by a boys' company at 
St. Paul's in 1599. 



THE HISTORY PLAY 301 

history plays, extant and lost, were produced for per- 
formance by the companies of Henslowe; and of the 
entire number preserved relatively few, except those of 
Marlowe and of the mature Shakespeare, escape en- 
tirely the faults incident to divided authorship and 
ill-digested plot. 

At least twenty of the plays on English and French 
history known to have been acted by Henslowe's com- 
panies have perished or exist only as incorporated in 
later works; and there seems little reason to doubt that 
they were justly abandoned to oblivion. The species as 
a whole was a plebeian growth, fostered by unpolished 
and irregular stage conditions, bound to few if any of 
the rules of art, and often seeking applause solely by 
motley spectacular effect. Plays like "The Wars of 
Henry I," "Pierce of Exton," "The Funeral of Richard 
Coiur de Lion," the two parts each of "Earl Godwin" 
and "Sir John Oldcastle," and the three parts of "The 
Civil Wars of France," all compiled, as "Henslowe's 
Diary " shows, during the years 1598 and 1599, by the 
united labor of from two to five of his regular hench- 
men,^ were clearly little more than hasty dishonest 
efforts to stay temporarily the popular dramatic appe- 
tite. It is probable that fate has done ample justice to 
the species in preserving a single example out of the 
number cited.^ But the widespread serious interest 
in the march of history, which Henslowe thus exploited 
for the sake of varied and sensational entertainment, 
responded to more reverent treatment and bore far 
riper fruit. 

"Tamburlaine" is, more than any other drama, the 

1 /. e., Chettle, Dekker, Wilson, Drayton, Munday, and Ilathway. 
» Namely, The First Part of Sir John Oldeastle, published in ICOO. 



302 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

source and original of the Elizabethan history play. 
Earlier English works can hardly be said to exert any 
permanent influence upon the type or to come within 
its limits. Bale's "King John" is a controversial mo- 
rality, reinforced by historical application; "Ferrex 
and Porrex," "The Misfortunes of Arthur," and "Lo- 
crine " are all excluded, not because they present myth- 
ical events, — for such discrimination is quite alien to 
the Elizabethan conception of history and to the pro- 
cedure of Holinshed and the authors of the "Mirror for 
Magistrates," — but because their treatment is a mere 
reflection of classic practice in the Roman tragedy or 
fabula prcetexta. 

Marlowe's imaginative handling of his historical 
sources in the first part of " Tamburlaine " and the 
picture which the entire work paints of warlike ambi- 
tion and royal magnificence, did much to fix the tone 
of the species, and proved the direct inspiration of sev- 
eral of the most notable examples. The addition of the 
second part to this play doubtless suggested the all but 
universal practice of extending the short stage life of 
any popular dramatization of history by easily concocted 
continuations bearing the same name but often mani- 
festing little real affinity. One of the earliest of the 
extant plays on English history, "The Troublesome 
Reign of John King of England," printed in 1591 as 
acted by the Queen's Players, refers pointedly in its 
prologue to Marlowe's tragedy: — 

" You that with friendly grace of smoothed brow 
Hauc ontcrtaind the Scythian Tamburiaine, 
And given applause vnto an Infidel: 
Vouchsafe to welcome (with like curtesie); 
A warlike Christian aud your Countreyman. " 



THE HISTORY PLAY 303 

The contrast thus challenged is, however, only super- 
ficial, and results to the crushing disadvantage of the 
later work. The two parts of "King John" imitate 
the two parts of "Tamburlaine" merely in so far as 
they present a series of battles, conspiracies, and es- 
capes ranging over a number of years. 

The infinite diversity of the late sixteenth-century his- 
tory plays can best be rendered capable of orderly treat- 
ment by distributing the extant specimens among five 
fairly distinct, though not mutually exclusive, classes : 

First. Plays of mixed type, relatively early for the 
most part, and generally characterized by artistic un- 
certainty. 

Second. Biographical dramas: collections of ill- 
unified scenes presenting various incidents in the life of 
some famous character. 

Third. Histories of tragic type : plays which demand 
no exemption from the conservative dramatic rules, 
but produce the effect of regular tragedy by means not 
strikingly irregular. 

Fourth. Plays 'par excellence of national feeling or 
national philosophy, where the normal interest in 
dramatis persona; is more or less absorbed either in the 
expression of patriotic sentiment or in the interpreta- 
tion of problems of government and statecraft. It is 
this class which gives to the Elizabethan history play 
its individuality as a dramatic species. 

Fifth. Romanticized treatments of history, in which 
the admixture of fact possesses no real significance and 
deserves no special attention. 

To the first of these groups belong apparently nearly 
all of the lost plays mentioned by Ilenslowe, except 
those which are referable to the biographical class. The 



304 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

same group includes also most of what seem to be the 
earliest extant attempts at dramatizing history subse- 
quent to "Tamburlaine": " The Troublesome Reign of 
John," already mentioned; "The Famous Victories of 
Henry V "; "The Life and Death of Jack Straw"; "The 
True Tragedy of Richard III"; Lodge's "Wounds of 
Civil War"; Marlowe's "Massacre at Paris"; the 
Henry VI plays; and perhaps also Peele's "Battle of 
Alcazar." Common features of these dramas are the ab- 
sence of a central theme, the rough presentation of the 
conspicuous events of many years(without any effort to 
inform them with continuous purpose or historic per- 
spective, and the infusion of extraneous comic matter 
ranging from the elaborate buffoonery of "The Famous 
Victories" to the grisly jokes over the dead Admiral's 
body and the morbid double meanings of the soldier's 
soliloquy before killing Mugeroun.^ The mingling of 
comic burlesque with the serious business of tragedy 
was a special vice of the time, which Shakespeare's 
practice only later transmuted into a virtue; and the 
excision by the printer of "Tamburlaine" of the un- 
worthy farcical passages "of some vaine conceited fon- 
dlings greatly gaped at what time they were shewed 
\T)on the stage" has not wholly freed even that work 
from indecorous mirth. 

The plays on King John and Henry V have a 
particular interest as the sources in large measure of 
dramas by Shakespeare. It is in the latter poet's con- 
cern with history plays as collaborator, reviser, and 
innovator that the student of Shakespeare finds the 
clearest indications of the lines along which his early 
dramatic training proceeded. Shakespeare's "King 
1 Massacre at Paris. U. 487 ff, 812 ff. 



THE HISTORY PLAY 305 

John" occupies a middle position in date and in 
poetic independence between the Henry VI plays and 
those that treat Henry IV and Henry V. From "The 
Troublesome Reign of John," written for the most part 
in very tolerable blank verse, Shakespeare derived the 
entire subject matter for his dramatization of the same 
reign, the two parts of the original work being so con- 
densed that the end of Part I coincides with the close 
of Act IV, scene 2 of the later play. In marked con- 
trast with his more diflSdent handling of the Henry VI 
dramas, Shakespeare here retains practically nothing 
of the language of his source. He manifests a mature 
appreciation of character, moreover, in the skill with 
which he vivifies the only remarkable figure in the old 
play, that of the Bastard Philip, and heightens into 
personages of the first dramatic importance the com- 
monplace original conceptions of Arthur, Constance, 
John, and Hubert. Everywhere, however, the struc- 
ture of the old play is visible behind the new work. 
All Shakespeare's dramatis personoe are taken from 
the "Troublesome Reign," with the single exception 
of Lady Falconbridge's servant, James Gurney, who 
speaks precisely four words of the first scene. 

Apart from the improvements already noted, Shake- 
speare's changes are relatively slight and not inevitably 
happy. He retains the absurd identification of the Vis- 
count of Limoges with the Archduke of Austria, but so 
reduces the part of that actor that his previous concern 
in the death of Richard I, his possession of the "lion's 
hide," and Philip's consequent hostility are barely in- 
telligible. The desire for compression is further respon- 
sible for the practical sacrifice of the most striking 
scene of the old play — that in which Philip confronts 



306 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

his mother — and for the omission of the comic por- 
tions depicting the vices of monasticism. The same 
cause and the clearer reaHzation of John's wily, cow- 
ardly, and selfish nature account for the absence of the 
scenes in which the earlier poet, following independ- 
ently the line of Bale's "King John," portrays the king 
as the heroic but defeated champion of English liberty 
against an encroaching papistry. What Shakespeare's 
play gains by this last change in the convincing pre- 
sentation of John's character it loses to a large extent 
by leaving his murder at the hands of the monks of 
Swinstead unmotivated and only casually portrayed. 

Upon the whole, Shakespeare's "King John" be- 
longs, like the other play, to the experimental period 
of historic drama. It portrays a succession of political 
events by means of scenes still inconsecutive and often 
incongruous, substituting matches of declamatory brag- 
gadocio for the realistic presentation of battle, and ex- 
plaining policies of state as the mere accidents of in- 
dividual whim. The touch of genius is present in the 
language, in the delineation of the main characters, 
and in several fine emotional scenes; but the work lacks 
the realization of the dignity of history and the com- 
prehensive unity of structure which mark the great 
and permanently successful history plays. 

"The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth: Con- 
taining the Honorable Battle of Agincourt" is a drama 
of considerably less merit than "The Troublesome 
Reign of John," and it may perhaps be ascribed to an 
earlier date. The only extant sixteenth-century edi- 
tion, published in 1598,^ gives a text concerning much 

^ The play wjis licensed for publication in 1594, and may have 
been printed in that year. A later edition appeared iu 1G17. 



THE HISTORY PLAY 307 

of which it is difficult to decide whether prose has been 
misprinted as verse or whether verse has been alto- 
gether corrupted into prose. The earlier scenes deal 
mainly with the thieving exploits and humors of the 
young prince with his followers, Ned and Tom, and 
Falstaff's pale progenitor. Sir John Oldcastle or 
"Jockey," furnishing thus the bare suggestion for such 
parts of the Henry IV plays as do not concern the 
rising of the Percies. The later portion of the "Famous 
Victories" stands in a similar relation to "Henry V," 
portraying the consequences of the dauphin's gift of 
tennis balls through the battle of Agincourt to the 
wooing and betrothal of Katharine of France. The 
play has been attributed on conjectural evidence to 
the authorship of the famous comedian Richard Tarle- 
ton, who died in 1588; and it was undoubtedly com- 
posed with particular attention to the interests of a 
comic actor. The humor, however, though quite dis- 
proportioned in quantity to the serious historical mat- 
ter, is generally of a poor sort and often degenerates 
into mere horse-play. 

The most striking scene of the "Famous Victories" 
— that which dramatizes Holinshed's account of the 
meeting between the turbulent prince and the chief 
justice — furnished Shakespeare merely with a couple 
of suggestions for the second part of "Henry IV"; but 
elsewhere the relationship is more essential, and con- 
stitutes the only serious claim of the old play upon the 
reader's patience. A complete object lesson in the 
development of the "history" from its rudiments to 
maturity is furnished by a comparison of the tangled, 
ineffective plot of the "Famous Victories" with the 
three plays which at the height of his perfection iu this 



308 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

style Shakespeare constructed out of the same material. 
With the leisurely assurance of conscious art, the later 
poet devotes an entire trilogy to the development of 
the theme, so falteringly outlined by his predecessor, 
of the prince's relation to his youthful companions, his 
father, and his country. The puerile comic efforts 
of the "Victories" are sorted, selected, raised to the 
highest poetic and imaginative power, and then woven 
into the patriotic political fabric, till the complemen- 
tary strains of realistic humor and historic ideality 
stand out as two in one like the mind and soul respec- 
tively of the living drama. The motley farcical scraps, 
with which the "Famous Victories" is largely pieced 
together, produced, when expanded and interpreted 
by Shakespeare, not only the group of robbery scenes 
in the first part of "Henry IV," but the impressment 
scenes in the second part as well, and the first sugges- 
tion for Pistol's experiences in the wars.^ 

"The True Tragedy of Richard the Third " was first 
published in 1594, as acted by the Queen's Players, 
the same company by which "The Troublesome Reign 
of John" and "The Famous Victories of Henry V" 
are known to have been performed. No direct con- 
nection can be established between this blundering 
effort of antiquated dramaturgy and Shakespeare's 
"Richard III"; nor does there seem plausible reason 
for supposing that the "True Tragedy" was intended 
in any way as a continuation of the Henry VI plays. 
Composed in a rude mixture of prose, riming hep- 

* The scenes depicting Falstaff's levying of soldiers are, of course, 
elaborated by Shakespeare with much pc-rsonal reminiscence, but the 
first suggestion doubtless came from the impressment of John Cob- 
bler and Derrick, in the old play. 



THE HISTORY PLAY 309 

tameters of the transitional pattern, and rough blank 
verse, the work shows everywhere in the development 
of its plot as well a backwardness which would natu- 
rally relegate it to the pre-"Tamburlaine" era, though 
the allusions to the Armada and to other political 
events make it certain that in point of actual date it 
follows that play. An opening Latin couplet in which 
the ghost of Clarence denounces blood and vengeance 
after the old Senecan manner, is followed by an induc- 
tion in which Truth and Poetry announce the subject 
and explain the state of affairs. The presentation of 
history is of the roughest description. Individualiza- 
tion of character is almost wholly lacking, and criti- 
cal purpose appears neither in the selection nor in 
the handling of events. Even the magnificent oppor- 
tunity of the battle of Bosworth is largely frittered 
away, and Richard dies somewhat tamely after fifteen 
lines of dull soliloquy in prose. Comic relief in the 
proper sense does not exist, though something of the 
sort has been clumsily attempted by the interpolation 
of scenes depicting the sufferings of Mistress Shore 
and the moralizing of Richard's page, — scenes alto- 
gether out of keeping with the rest of the drama. The 
following lines from a speech of Richard illustrate the 
Senecan method of the author and exemplify his high- 
est achievement in blank verse, while they suggest at 
once a contrast with Shakespeare's development of the 
same idea which measures well the difference between 
the two writers: — 

" The hell of life that hangs vpon the Crowne, 
The daily cares, the nightly dreames. 
The wretched crewes, the treason of the foe. 
And horror of my bloodie practice past, 



810 THE TT^DOR DRAMA 

Strikes such a torror to my woumloil conscience, • 
That sKvp I, wako 1, or \vhatstK*uor I do, 
Mivthinkcs their gho;usts oonu-s traping for rouenge, 
\Vhom 1 haue slaine in reaching for a Crowne. 
Chvrence complaiucs, and crielh for reuenge. 
My nephues bloods, Reuenge, reuenge, doth crie. ' 
The headlesse Pet^res ct>me preasing for reuenge. 
And eucry one cries, let the tyrant die. 
The Sunnc by day shines hololy for rinienge. 
The Moone by night colipselli for reuenge. 
The stars an- turned to Comets for reuenge. 
The Planets chaunge their cimrses for nnienge. 
The binis sing not, but sorrow for reuenge. 
The silly lambes sits bleating for reuenge. 
The scrooking Rauen sits croking for reuenge. 
Whole herds of bejxiits comes bclloNving for reuenge- 
And all, yea all the world I thinke. 
Cries for reuenge, and nothing but reuenge. 
But to ct^nclude, I haue deserued reuenge." 

Resemblances of style between this passage and 
"Locrine" have been adduced as evidence of the com- 
mon authorship of. the two plays: and though the 
particular contention remains entirel.v unestablished, 
there seems no doubt that "The True Tragedy of 
Richard III" belongs in spirit to the i>eriod of critical 
imcertainty and formlessness which "Locrine" illus- 
trates. 

To nmch the same type of early chronicle play be- 
long a mnnber of contemporary dramatizations of 
recent foixMgn history, most of which contain clear 
evidence of the inlhience of "Tamburlaine." Several 
of them, indeed, trt\it incidents in the Turkish history 
which Marlowe's play first popularized on the stage. 
Among such dramas nnist be mentioned: Peele's 
"Battle of Alcazar " (1594) ; the biographicd treatmeut 



• THE niSTORY PLAY 311 

of the same subject, likewise performed by the Lord 
Admiral's Men, and published in 1()05 as "The Famous 
History of the life and death of Captain Thomas 
Stukely"; also "The Tragical Reign of Selimus, some- 
time Emperor of the Turks" (1594), perhaps written 
by Robert Greene; ' and two plays by Marlowe, — the 
hasty "Massacre at Paris" and the very imaginative 
treatment of Turkish relations with Malta and Cyprus 
in "The Jewof i\[alta." 

"The Battle of Alcazar" and "Selimus" are formed 
on much the same early pattern as "The True Tragedy 
of Richard III," though both possess higher poetic 
value; and "Selimus" is connected with "Locrine" 
by a similarity which only the closest imitation or 
partial community of authorship will explain.- "The 
Battle of Alcazar" lacks the comic element usual to 
the class and copiously present in "Selimus." In the 
devices of the Presenter, the dumb-shows, and "three 
ghosts crying 'vindicta,'" the former play follows the 
most primitive models of its kind; while the peculiar 
tone of its lyric verse, which gives it its chief poetic 
value and renders Peele's authorship to my mind 
nearly indisputable, deprives it almost wholly of his- 
toric verisimilitude. "The Battle of Alcazar" and 
many other plays of its decade, though really called 
forth by the success of "Tamburlaine," failed entirely 

' Greene's authorship of Selimus is still very doubtful. The main 
cvidcnee in its favor is the quotation of several extracts from the play 
over R. Greene's name in Eiiglaiufs Parnassus (1600). See Hugo 
Gilbert's valuable dissertation, Robert Greene's Selimus, Kiel, 1899; 
and on the other side the introductions to the editions of Greene 
by J. C. Collins and T. H. Dickinson. 

- The former alternative is much the more likely. It seems clear 
that Locrine is the earlier of the two plays. 



812 THE TUDOR DRAMA ♦ 

to utilize the new dramatic discoveries in plot and 
character and harked back to older methods. Yet 
Peele's figure of the villain Moor, Muly Mahamet, is 
undoubtedly an awkward essay in Marlowe's early 
manner; while the particular scene — the most notable 
in the play — in which that character appears "with 
lion's flesh upon his sword," and rings the changes on 
the theme, "Feed then and faint not, fair Calipolis," 
is the closest parody, as Shakespeare recognized, of the 
"Tamburlaine" heroics.^ 

Thomas Lodge's "Wounds of Civil War, Lively set 
forth in the True Tragedies of Marius and Sylla" was 
acted by the Lord Admiral's Company at a period not 
definitely determined, and was published in the same 
year with "The Battle of Alcazar" and "Selimus" 
(1594). Lodge's play is interesting as offering prob- 
ably the earliest example of the use of Plutarchan 
material on the English stage; but it does not anywhere 
exhibit the slightest recognition of the rare tragic 
opportunity which later writers were to find in the 
Lives. In "The Wounds of Civil War," a large quan- 
tity of careful and not unmelodious blank verse is 
rendered totally ineffective by formlessness of plot 
and psychological poverty. Bloodshed and violent 
declamation abound, of course; but there appears no 
trace of fundamental unity or artistic premeditation 
in the handling either of action or of character. 
Equally devoid of historic sense and structural ability 
are Marlowe's synopsis of French history during the 
seventeen years immediately past (1572-1589) in "The 

^ See Pistol's ra-snngs in 2 Henry IV, II, iv. Cf . also Tucca in Dek- 
ker's Satiromastix, ed. 1873, I, 230, "Feede and be fat, my faire 
Calipolis." 



THE HISTORY PLAY 313 

Massacre at Paris" and the same poet's disjointed 
treatment of events largely mythical or distorted in 
"The Jew of Malta." 

Far the most important of the early unmethodized 
history plays are, on many accounts, the dramas which 
deal with the reign of King Henry VI. In these plays, 
which happen to illustrate Shakespeare's earliest con- 
nection with the species, there appears the first faint 
conception of a great continuous purpose and a uni- 
versal lesson behind the blind accidents and spectacu- 
lar horrors of history. The three parts form in their 
revised state a single drama, proceeding coherently 
from the exposition of the discord and incapacity of 
Henry VI 's early reign to the final bloody death with 
which that Weak sovereign pays the penalty of his 
incompetence. The trilogy must be viewed as a whole 
to perceive the central principle that glimmeringly 
informs it; but when so viewed that principle becomes 
evident beneath the vast tangle of miscellaneous 
scenes. It is the doctrine — inherent in Elizabethan 
patriotism, and far more strongly enunciated in the 
Richard II-Bolingbroke plays, in "Julius Csesar," 
and even in Marlowe's " Edward II " — of the essential 
inconvertibility of the politic and moral virtues, and 
the futility of attempting to pay off the great debt 
which the governor owes the governed with the small 
coin of personal piety or occasional generosity. 

"King Henry VI, Part I," first printed in the 1623 
Shakespeare, was acted with great success by Lord 
Strange 's company, sixteen performances being re- 
corded by Henslowe for the period extending from 
March 3, 1592, to January 31 of the following year. 
The company was that of Shakespeare, with which 



314 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Henslowe had at this time a transient connection; and 
the play acted was probably the extant amphfication 
by Shakespeare of an earher version. Since the origi- 
nal text has not been preserved, it is impossible to 
gauge precisely the extent of the reviser's alterations; 
but it is conventional to consider the scene in the 
Temple Gardens (II, iv), those presenting Talbot's 
death (IV, ii-vii), and the interview beween Suffolk 
and Margaret in V, iii, as largely Shakespeare's inde- 
pendent invention; while the general polish and homo- 
geneity of style suggest the conscientious line by line 
correction which can be proved for the second and 
third parts of the play. 

In its general scope the first part of "Henry VI'* 
belongs to the most artless form of history play. 
Events covering a period of thirty-one years are pre- 
sented without regard for details of fact or chrono- 
logical sequence. Dramatic unity is defeated by the 
over-ambitious attempt to develop side by side the 
three separate themes of the wars in France, the con- 
troversy between the Duke of Gloucester and the 
Bishop of Winchester, and the quarrel of York and 
Somerset, besides certain purely imaginary romantic 
episodes like that of Talbot and the Countess of 
Auvergne. Both in the first and the second part of the 
play the reader is embarrassed by the difficulty of 
reconciling his sympathy with the good Duke Hum- 
phrey with that aroused for the ambitious York, who, 
though antagonistic, like Gloucester, to the Beauforts 
(Winchester and Somerset), yet for his own purposes 
cooperates partly with Gloucester's enemies, and thus 
gives a puzzling triangular effect to the action of both 
plays. Yet efforts at unifying the dramatic threads 



THE HISTORY PLAY 315 

are not absent from the first part, as in the imputa- 
tion of responsibility for Talbot's miscarriage to the 
mutual recriminations of York and Somerset; while 
Nash's specific tribute in "Pierce Penniless" (1592) 
and the immediate flood of imitative dramas show how 
the play evoked a loftier patriotism and a more seri- 
ous interest in history than had previously existed. 

The second and third parts of "Henry VI" are pre- 
served in three separate versions. The earliest edi- 
tions of these two plays appeared in 1594 and 1595 
respectively, with the following titles: "The first part 
of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of 
Yorke and Lancaster, with the death of the good Duke 
Humphrey: And the banishment and death of the 
Duke of Suffolke, and the Tragicall end of the proud 
Cardinall of Winchester, with the notable Rebellion 
of lacke Cade: And the Duke of Yorkes first claim 
Vnto the Crowne — 1594"; and "The true Tragedie 
of Richard Duke of Yorke, and the death of good King 
Henrie the Sixt, with the whole contention betweene 
the two Houses Lancaster and Yorke, as it was sun- 
drie times acted by the Right Honourable the Earle 
of Pembrooke his seruants — 1595." Both plays were 
reprinted without noteworthy change in 1600. In 1619, 
a second, slightly altered, text appeared, the two parts 
being combined in a single quarto entitled "The 
Whole Contention betweene the Famous Houses, 
Lancaster and Yorke. With the Tragicall ends of the 
good Duke Humfrcy, Richard Duke of Yorke, and 
King Henrie the sixt. Diuided into two Parts: And 
newly corrected and enlarged. Written by William 
Shakespeare, Gent." Finally, the 1623 Shakespeare 
Folio printed a very largely amplified and carefully 



316 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

revised text, bringing all the tlirtv Henry VI plays 
for the first time into direct connection, and designat- 
ing those we are specially considering as the second 
and third parts in the trilogy. 

The Relation of these ditferent texts and the pK>cise 
authorship of each form the subject of the most ob- 
scure problem in the textual criticism of Shakespeare. 
Thert^ seems no doubt, however, that the second and 
third parts of "Henry VI," like the first part, are not 
original creations, but revisions by Shakespeare during 
liis dramatic novitiate of plays already extant; and 
there is decisive evidence to show that Christopher 
Marlowe was the partial author, at least, of the earlier 
versions. Fiirthermore, the testimony of style and 
structure goes far to prove that Shakespeare's final 
text of the plays, as published by his editors in 16'23, 
antedates 1594;* and therefore that the perfect version 
was in existence, and had presumably been acted, 
before the appearance of the earliest edition of the 
imperfect "First Part of the Contention" and "True 
Tragedy" (lo04, loOo). Now, all the circumstances 
surrounding the publication of the various imperfect 
texts of the two plays in 159-1. 1595, 1600, and 1019 
indicate that thoy wcr^ surreptitious undertakings 
brought out without sanction of the author and with- 
out the moans of access to the corrected copy. The 
latter wouKl be jealously guanled by the theatrical 
company to which it belonged, and some stray copy 
of the earlier, antiquated text must have formed the 
basis of all the versions previous to 16^3. The 1019 

* The natiin^ of Cmx-no's allusion in the Groatstrorth of Wit is 
such as to make it probablo that Shakespojvre's revision anteilated 
Greene's death iu Si^ptember, loOi. 



THE HISTORY PLAY 317 

text, which first makes claim of Shakespearean author- 
ship, stands intermediate in some respects between 
tliat of 1594-1595 and tlie final version. Though cer- 
tainly founded ir. the main tipon the same orij^inal as 
the former, it contains a few indej)endent details and 
a few others which conform in part to the corrected 
acting version. 

The second and third parts of "Henry VI" form in 
a peculiar degree a single play. Neither part is dra- 
matically suflieient in itself; and it seems clear that 
each was composed with the other part distinctly in 
view, and by the same authors. There is no reason to 
sui)pose that Shakespeare — who carefully revised all 
the verse, expanded or recast many of the finest 
speeches, trans[)osed and perhaps even added a few 
scenes in minor key — altered materially the general 
structure of the plays, or even effected any such radi- 
cal change in character as he did, for example, in his 
trealment of the old play of "King John." Both i)arts 
reflect the early naive conception of history play, lack- 
ing all appreciation of dramatic climax and possessing 
only such general unity as was naturally inherent in 
their subject matter. The interest of the second part 
revolves about two centres, Duke Humphrey and 
York; that of the third follows York as far as the end 
of the first act, and then divides itself between Ed- 
ward, Richard, and Warwick. Both plays introduce 
artlessly a good deal of extraneous material, for no 
higher pin'])ose, apparently, than the simple ambition 
to present the audience with every scrap of material 
which the chronicles afford. Such, for instance, are 
the passages dealing with the conjuring and punish- 
ment of the Duchess of Gloucester and the episodes of 



818 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Simpcox and Horner in Part II, and the scene between 
King Henry and the Keepers in Part III. 

The highest dramatic merit of these plays consists 
in the characterization of Richard, Duke of York; and 
this figure, which belongs clearly to the earliest ver- 
sion of the work, is incontrovertibly the production of 
Marlowe. York's character is a repetition, somewhat 
more sympathetically and amply portrayed, of that of 
Guise in "The Massacre at Paris," with all Guise's 
Machiavellian cunning and lofty resolution and with 
something more of the graceful charm which marks 
Tamburlainc. This picture Shakespeare altered in no 
essential, though he expanded many of Marlowe's 
speeches in such a manner that a comparison of the 
earliest and latest texts makes it possible to trace with 
considerable exactitude the reverent yet independent 
touch with which the later writer filled in the lines of 
the earlier. 

With Guise's long soliloquy near the beginning of the 
"Massacre" should be compared the first soliloquy of 
York (^ Henry VI, I, i, 21-1 ff), which I quote from the 
text of 1594: — 

" Anioy and Maine, both giuen vnto the French, 
Cold newes for me, for I had hope of France, 
Euen as I haue of fertill England, 
A day will come when Yorke shall claime his owne. 
And therefore I will take the Neuels parts. 
And make a show of loue to proud Duke Humphrey: 
And when I spie aduantage, claime the Crovvne, 
For thats the golden marke I secke to hit; 
Nor shall proud Lancaster vsurpe my right. 
Nor hold the scepter in his childish fist. 
Nor vveare the Diademe vpon his head. 
Whose church-like humours fits not for a CrovNTie: 
Then Yorke be still a while till time do scrue. 



THE HISTORY PLAY 319 

Watch thou, and wake when others be asleepe,^ 

To prie into the secrets of the state. 

Till Henry surfeiting in ioyes of loue. 

With his new bride, and Englands dear bought queene. 

And Humphrey with the Peeres be fulne at iarres, 

Then will I raise aloft the milke-white Rose, 

With whose sweete smell the aire shall be perfumde. 

And in my Standard beare the Armes of Yorke, 

To grafBe with the House of Lancaster : 

And force perforce, ile make him yeeld the Crovvne, ' 

Whose bookish rule hath puld faire England dovvne." 

Throughout, York's character and language show 
strongly the impress of Marlowe's handling, and his 
two great penultimate speeches in the first act of the 
Third Part (I, iv, 111-149, 152-168) prove themselves 
in sentiment, verse-flow, and verbal reminiscence un- 
mistakable productions of that poet. I quote again 
the version of the earliest text, that of the 1595 octavo, 
with which the very slightly altered readings of the 
final edition can profitably be compared : — 

" She wolfe of France, but worse than Wolues of France, 
Whose tongue more poison'd [poisons] than the Adders tooth 
How ill beseeming is it in thy sexe. 
To triumph like an Amazonian trull 
Vpon his woes, whom Fortune captiuates ? 
But that thy face is visardlike, vnchanging. 
Made impudent by vse of euill deeds: 
I would assaie, proud Queene to make thee blush. 

• . . . . • •_..•'•■* 
Thou art as opposite to euerie good, 
As the Antipodes are vnto vs, 
Or as the south to the Septentrion. 
Oh Tygers hart wrapt in a womans hide ! 
How couldst thou draine the life bloud of the childe. 
To bid the father wipe his eies withall. 
And yet be scene to beare a womaus face ? 



320 THE TUDOR DRAAL\ 

Women are milde, pittifuU, and Bexible, 

Thou indurate, sterne, rough, rcraorcelcsse. 

Bids thou mo rage ? why now thou hast thy v^^ll. 

WouUist hauc me weepo ? why so thou hast thy wish. 

For raging windes blowes vp a storme of teares. 

And when the rage ahiies the raine begins. 

These teares are my sweet Ruthinds obsequies. 

And euerie drop bogs vengeance as it fals. 

On thee fell Clifford, and the[ol false French woman. 

That face of his the hungrie Cannibals 

Could not haue tucht, would not haue staind with blood. 

But you are more inhumane, more inexorable, 

ten times more then Tygers of Arcadia [Ilyrcania]. 
See ruthlosso Quoene a haplesse fathers teares. 

This cloth thou dipts in bloud of my sweet boy. 

And loe with teares I wash the bloud awaie. 

Keepe thou the napkin and go boast of that, 

And if thou tell the hoauie storie well, 

Vpon my soule the hearers will shoed teares, 

I, euen my foes will sheod fast falling teares. 

And saie alas, it was a pitteous deed. 

Here, take the crowne, and with the crowne my curse. 

And in thy need such comfort come to thee. 

As now I reape at thy two cruoU hands. 

Hard-harted Clifford, take me from the world. 

My soule to heauen, my bloud vpon your heads. 

North. Had he bin slaughterman of all my kin, 

1 could not chuso but weepe with him to see. 
How inlie anger gripes his hart." 

Not merely in the portrayal of the most conspicuous 
figure, but through the entire handling of these plays, 
the main finger is that of Marlowe, and the finest pas- 
sages tend rather to glorious declamation than the 
serious presentation of facts. Typically Marlovian 
are Suffolk's passionate outburst to the Queen upon 
his banishment (J Ilcnry VI, III, ii,308ff),the Queen's 



THE HISTORY PLAY 321 

denunciation of King Henry's weakness (3 Henry 
VI, I, i, 231 fif), and the dying speeches of Warwick 
(ibid., V, ii). Out of such material so respectfully 
treated by the reviser it was impossible to achieve 
dramatic unity or accuracy of impression; and the 
Henry VI plays remained after Shakespeare's elabo- 
ration substantially what they had been before, — 
rather examples of the utmost poetic capability of the 
old chaotic "history" than precursors of the new type 
which Shakespeare was to develop. 

The bio^jiphical play, the second form in which 
crude interest in the dramatization of history showed 
itself, requires little discussion. Extant specimens of 
the type are: "The Famous History of the Life and 
Death of Captain Thomas Stukely " (1605), previously 
mentioned; "The True Chronicle History of the whole 
Life and Death of Thomas Lord Cromwell" (1602); 
"The First Part of Sir John Oldcastle" (1600); ^ and 
the manuscript play of "Sir Thomas More." But 
there can be no question that the great majority of 
such works, copiously suggested by titles preserved in 
"Henslowe's Diary," perished after they had served 
the temporary need which produced them. It has been 
hinted already that the biographical history inherited 
from the old heroic drama, and continued the tradi- 
tion established by that type.^ As higher requirements 
of plot and character began to drive from the stage 
the rambling presentation of the adventures of mythi- 
cal heroes like Sir Clyomon and Huon of Bordeaux, 
it was found possible still to hold the public ear by 
treating the lives of real personages in much the same 
disjointed manner. The very play of "Tamburlaine," 

* No second part seems to have been published. 

* See p. 252. 



322 THE TUDOR DRAMA"^ 

for example, which on the one hand marks the devel- 
opment of the naive chivalrous play into a character 
drama so much higher in tone as to belong to an essen- 
tially different and incompatible species, testifies on 
the other hand to the general interest in historic per- 
sonality which gave temporary acceptance to even 
the most banal and formless presentations. It is 
doubtless no accident that Henslowe's entries indi- 
cate an abandonment of plays like "Huon of Bor- 
deaux" (1593), "Godfrey of Bulloigne" (1594), and 
"Chinon of England" (1596), and an increase in such 
titles as "Tamar Cam" (1592), "Buckingham" (1593), 
"Stukely" (1596), " Hardicanute " (1597), "Oldcastle" 
(1599), "Owen Tudor" (1600), and "Biron" (1602). 
Of the four extant biographical plays mentioned above, 
two, "Oldcastle" and "More," are clearly the result 
of divided authorship. None possesses in any degree 
unity of conception or treatment; and all depend self- 
confessedly upon the attractive power of the individ- 
ual careers presented to compensate for many defi- 
ciencies of execution. Of the detached scenes which 
compose all these works, the most successful, and the 
most significant historically, are probably those in 
"Oldcastle," dealing with the conspiracy of Cambridge, 
Scroope, and Grey, and the admirable portrayal of the 
111 May Day riot in "Sir Thomas More," a passage 
which it may perhaps not be over-credulous to regard 
as partially the work of Shakespeare's early hand. 
I The earliest English play to treat the material of 
history with conscious reverence for the established 
V rules of dramatic composition is Marlowe's "Edward 
II." ^ In this work, which introduced, if it did not 
^^ 1 It may be that this distinction should be shared by Marlowe's 



THE HISTORY PLAY 323 

create, the third type of history drama, considerations 
of temporary popular appeal are for the first time sub- 
ordinated to the austerer principles of permanent art. 
The forethought with which Marlowe selected, altered, 
and condensed the chronicle narratives, till he formed 
from their various blurred outlines the single consist- 
ent picture he desired, was a new thing in dramatized 
history, and it gives to his play, when contrasted with 
the motley unreasoned patchwork that surrounded 
it, the lucidity and restraint of a classic. It may be 
that a certain inconsequence in the presentation of 
character conflict, and /a tendency to juggle with the 
springs of emotion, which alwi\ys disqualifies Marlowe 
for the judicial impartiality of Shakespeare, cause 
"Edward 11" to fall somewhat short of the highest 
form of tragedy, — the tragedy of characterization. 
Yet it is one of the purest instances of the tragedy of 
circumstance, and it raised the history play to the dig- 
nity of permanent literature, inaugurating a new spe- 
cies and creating a public for the great histories of 
Shakespeare. 

Shakespeare's first independent history plays, 
"Richard III" and "Richard II," are composed in 
marked imitation of the work of Marlowe. "Richard 
III," written in all probabihty about 1593, within a 
year or two of the production of "Edward II," reverts 
to the earlier structural model of "Tamburlaine" and 
"Faustus," concentrating attention upon a single 
imposing figure and rioting in crude melodramatic 

Dido, Queen of Carthage, in which Thomas Nash had some vague con- 
cern. The subject of Dido, however, is far less seriously historic than 
that of Edward II; and much obscurity exists in regard to the precise 
date and origin of the former play. 



8^4 THE TIDOR DRAMA 

offoot. In certain details, iniltvd. snch as the emphasis 
hiid upon the power of the eurse/ the insistence on the 
signitieancv of drt^auis,- and the demoniac figure of 
Margaix^t, who follows like an avenging genius the 
just calamities of the House of York, the play shows 
itself influencvd by the earlier spirit of Senecan trag- 
eil>'. lUit. with all its glaring innnaturity, "Richard 
III" exhibits, both in the conception of its hero and 
in the general conduct of its plot, a fuller tragic pro- 
mise tlian "Edward 11" had attained. The rvnigh out- 
line of Richard's character — his Machiavellian self- 
isluiess and frank confession of villainy — is, of course, 
the same as that of Marlowe's Guise, Barabas. and 
Mortimer; but this outline is tilled in with the human- 
izing ^KTception of the highest genius. In his masterly 
assumption of guilelossness and simple dealing,^ his 
attempt at explaining his villainy to himself, liis im- 
mense delight in his mischievous mental power,^ and 
the imperturbable i^aruj-froid with which he turns 
against their authors the curses of Margart^t and the 
suspicions of the Woodvilles, Richard presents a 
character altogether ditfertnit from that he bears in 
the Henry VI plays and suggestive at every point of 
Shakespeare's grt^ttest triumph in the portrayal of 
evil genius, — the character of lago in "Othello." In 
one respect, indeed, the less mature treatment of 
Richan.1 is given a turn which invests that figure with 
the human probability and pathos somewhat lacking 
in the super-normal lago. It is the delicate touch 

1 Cf. 1. iii. Ill ff; IV. iv: V. i. 

» I. iv, 9 tT; III. ii. 10 tf ; V. Hi. 118 ff. 

» E. g.. I. iii. 47 tT. II. i. 60 ff; II. ii, 158; III, iv. 53-55. 

* I. ii. ^5>S ff: IV. iv. 431. 



THE HISTORY PLAY 325 

which shows the hcM-o's loss ;iL Iho crisis of Lhc phiy of 
his previously invincible self-confidence, as he feels 
in confusion, thougli still und.'iunlcd, the aj)proach 
of inevitjihlo doom. The irritable uncertainty of his 
commands to Catesby when he hears of Richmond's 
arrival (IV, iv, 410 ff), his sudden susi)iciousness of 
fate and friends (IV, iv, 509 if; V, iii, 2, 8, 72-74), and 
the horror and magnificent recovery of the dream 
scene humanize the figure of Richard and accom- 
plish that tragic pity which Marlowe wins for his 
Edward by the less dramatic recourse to pure emo- 
tiotialism. 

In structure, also, "Richard III" satisfies the re- 
quirements of high tragedy more fully than the riper 
and richer play of Marlowe. Though the former drama 
contains but one great protagonist, the battle which 
he wages against the overwhelming consequences of 
curse, projjhccy, and accumulated crime is so vividly 
depicted that there is nowhere a trace of incoherence 
or the least slackening of suspense. "Richard III" is 
the final achievement in the single-character drama, 
and it has continued, from the time of Burbage to the 
present, one of the most fruitful opportunities for the 
great tragic actor. Its success where other plays of the 
kind failed of permanent effectiveness results from its 
conception of the genius of history as an inexorable 
fate against which the hero maintains a mortal and 
hopeless combat. "Ricliard III" nuist be studied in 
the closest connection with the Henry VI plays. The 
latter end with the picture of the complete triumj)!! 
of the House of York and the prostration of injured 
Lancaster. "Richard III" has for its great theme the 
exposition of the punishment of the offenders at each 



326 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

other's hands, and the estabhshment of predestined 
right in the fulfilment of Henry's prophecy concerning 
Richmond's reign {3 Henry VI, IV, vi, 68 ff) and the 
union of the roses. In spirit and purpose this play is 
probably the closest parallel in English literature to 
the tragedy of ^Eschj^lus. 

"King Richard II," composed probably a year later 
than "Richard III," differs very greatly from that 
play, and though it marks an advance in dramatic 
capability, must be reckoned individually a less power- 
ful tragedy. "Richard III" ends a tetralogy dealing 
with selfish ambition and civil strife; "Richard II" 
begins another series of four plays in which Shake- 
speare treats primarily questions of good government 
and national patriotism. The latter work was most 
unmistakably suggested by "Edward II," although 
perhaps not properly an imitation; and the decision 
concerning the respective merits of the two plays is 
a matter of some delicacy. "Edward II" is far more 
mature, and, on the whole, doubtless a finer drama. 
Much of "Richard II" is lacking in vigor. The two 
challenge scenes (I, i; IV, i, 1-106) and that which 
deals with the interrupted tournament (I, iii) read 
almost like flashy imitations of Sir Walter Scott: they 
have no dignity and they do not discriminate char- 
acter.- The introduction of Aumerle's conspiracy is 
an otiose offence against the laws of tragic compres- 
sion, and some of Richard's long speeches exceed in 
vapidity what the spectator will patiently endure from 
even a confessedly weak hero. These are the defects 
of youth, embarrassed in the handling of a new style, 
and they find no parallel in the careful restraint of 
"Edward II." The special merit of Shakespeare's 



THE HISTORY PLAY 327 

play consists, as has been pointed out/ in the substi- 
tution of a single well-defined conflict between the king 
and Bolingbroke instead of the constantly changing 
bickerings of "Edward II," and in the clear demon- 
stration of the poet's theory of royal responsibility. 
These features both make for structural unity and 
argue the existence of tragic capacity considerably in 
excess of the actual performance of the play. 

The most interesting thing about "Richard II" is 
the character of Richard. The poetic irresolution and 
tendency to masquerade like a player king in his royal 
dignity were not peculiarities of the true Richard as 
Holinshed portrays him; and the stress upon these 
qualities so far obscures the tyranny, improvidence, 
and violence of the historical personage that the wild 
energy of the death scene appears positively out of 
keeping. Of all Shakespeare's monarchs, Richard II 
is the only one whose kingship seems painted and 
artificial. From the first scene he speaks and thinks 
less like the born sovereign than the enthroned yar- 
venu, making garish show of the supremacy which he 
should take for granted; and it sometimes looks almost 
as if Shakespeare were unjustly travestying Marlowe's 
treatment of the weak but always royal Edward. The 
truth probably is that both Richard and Bolingbroke 
are rather sketches of the two mental types which 
Shakespeare recognized within himself than serious 
portraits of historic figures. If we except Hamlet, as 
we should do, Richard is Shakespeare's last example, 
not wholly unfavorable, of that type of intellectual 
trifler who loses sight of truth and justice in the cult of 
felicitous novelty; and his 

1 See p. 251. 



328 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

" Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise. 
Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation, 
Figures pedantical," 

have an identical nature and origin with those which 
the young Shakespeare was continually renouncing 
through the mouth of Biron and others, and continu- 
ally yielding to again. It is this turn of mind, strik- 
ingly illustrated in the ridiculous conceits of the abdi- 
cation scene and the king's last soliloquy, to which the 
poet unhistorically ascribes Richard's fall; while in 
the successful Bolingbroke he emphasizes the corre- 
sponding virtues of prompt practical decision and free- 
dom from whimsicality. The story of Shakespeare's 
life may perhaps testify to the ultimate preponderance 
of the latter attitude, and his work, I believe, shows his 
final leaning toward the type of Bolingbroke.^ 

A roughly contemporary example of tragedy con- 
structed from historical material is preserved in an 
untitled British Museum manuscript, which has been 
twice printed and which is often referred to as "The 
Tragedy of Woodstock." This play deals with the 
reign of Richard II, and offers an interesting contrast 
to Shakespeare's treatment of the same theme. The 
principal figure is the king's uncle, Thomas of Wood- 
stock, Duke of Gloucester; and the tragedy ends with 
the circumstances immediately consequent upon the 
murder of that personage in 1397, — precisely the point 
at which Shakespeare's play begins. The events of 
fifteen years are boldly and skillfully shifted with a 
view to the dramatic presentation of the struggle 
which the humorous and patriotic old hero wages 

^ See, however, in opposition to this view the admirably ex- 
pressed argument of W. B. Yeats in Ideas of Good and Evil, 152 ff. 



THE HISTORY PLAY 329 

against the rash extravagance of the king and the 
destructive rapacity of his favorites. The picture of 
Richard's wild, improvident self-indulgence is very- 
much truer to the real character than is that of the 
poetic royal dilettante whom Shakespeare paints. 
Moreover, the unknown author of this play has strongly 
portrayed in the elevation of Tresillian, Bushy, Bagot, 
and Greene, in the crushing tyranny of the blank char- 
ters, the farming out of England, and the murder of 
Gloucester, real causes of the king's overthrow which 
it has pleased Shakespeare in his largely imaginary 
treatment to pass lightly over. 

The parallels between "Woodstock" and the plays 
of "Edward II" and "2 Henry VI," which Keller 
citeSj^seem to me to have very little pertinence; but 
it cannot well be doubted that the former work was 
influenced by Marlowe's example in its handling of 
the relation between Richard and his sycophants, the 
death of Woodstock, and the controversy between the 
peers and king. The author of "Woodstock" seems, 
however, to have been a practiced and independent 
dramatist. His skill in the use of prose and of humor- 
ous relief contrasts strikingly with the notable absence 
of both these elements in "Edward II" and "Richard 
II"; while his hero, Woodstock, though he never 
speaks more than passable verse, is in the convincing- 
ness and comprehensiveness of his character a more 
promising tragic figure, probably, than either Mar- 
lowe's Edward or Shakespeare's Richard. 

Three plays of Shakespeare's full power complete 
the roll of Elizabethan historical tragedies. " Macbeth," 

* See the preface to his edition of the play in the Shakespeare 
Jahrbuch, vol. xxxv (1899). 



330 THE TUDOR DRAMA' 

"Antony and Cleopatra," and " Coriolanus," all pro- 
duced within comparatively narrow limits of time 
(1606 ?-1610),are closely bound together by peculiari- 
ties of structure and by certain internal reminiscences.^ 
In each the historical material furnished by Holinshed 
and Plutarch respectively has been shaped into a mar- 
vellous presentation of the ruin of a great and noble na- 
ture by a single besetting and ultimately overwhelm- 
ing weakness; namely, ambition, unworthy love, and 
insolent self-assertion. Each of these plays exemplifies 
tragedy in its purest and highest form, and the tragic 
effect depends in each case upon the wise interpreta- 
tion of actual character and historic fact. In "Mac- 
beth," Shakespeare has applied the narrative of Holin- 
shed to the inculcation, in saner and more sympathetic 
manner, of the same moral of avenging guilt which he 
had before read in the history of Richard III. In the 
stories of Antony and Coriolanus, he found his own 
doctrine of the normal balance of the world, and the 
necessary punishment of what is eccentric and exor- 
bitant, already nobly stated by Plutarch; and he has 
been content in these perfect tragedies to follow his 
historic source with a closeness with which he has fol- 
lowed no other. 

To the fourth species of history play belong those 
dramas w^iich, while not subject to the rules of ordi- 
nary tragedy or comedy, yet rise above the level of art- 
less improvisation, and owe their inspiration to a more 
vital cause than purely melodramatic effectiveness or 
mere ephemeral appeal. In such plays there is always 
perceptible behind the individual human actors a back- 

1 Note, for example, the allusions to Plutarch's Life of Antonius in 
Macbcffi, III, i, 5i-57 and V, viii, 1, 2. 



THE HISTORY PLAY 331 

ground which presents a philosophic interpretation of 
history or a general picture of some great epoch. Any 
technical analysis of these plays will find most of the 
examples lacking in unity and in dramatic intensity. 
But when they are interpreted as delineations of His- 
tory itself rather than historic individuals, the reader 
has no difficulty in explaining the singleness of aim and 
eflPect which he really feels, but which he can hardly 
account for by any of the regular canons of dramatic 
art. 

Perhaps the earliest representative of the type under 
discussion is the anonymous "Reign of King Edward 
the Third," published in 1596 and acted probably sev- 
eral years before. Here the strong current of national 
feeling, produced by the general agitation which cul- 
minated in the defeat of the Armada, and found expres- 
sion in the patriotic outbursts of "Locrine" (IV, i, 28- 
43), of Falconbridge in the King John plays, and of 
John of Gaunt in "Richard II," becomes the main dra- 
matic force in the work. The plot, derived principally 
from Holinshed's Chronicles of England and Scotland, 
is totally lacking in dramatic coherence. The introduc- 
tion of the scenes dealing with the Countess of Salis- 
bury is capable of satisfactory explanation only when 
we realize the universal popular worship of Edward III 
as the particular embodiment of England's glory, and 
the half-pagan reverence which would follow breath- 
lessly the career of the divinity in peace as well as war. 
The military scenes themselves are quite disjointed in 
respect of any progressive delineation of character or 
the untying of any specific dramatic knot. The real 
subject of the play is not Edward himself or his valiant 
son, but the national prestige in its steady progress 



332 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

from Crecy to Poitiers and from Poitiers to the con- 
quest of Calais.^ So, the great dramatic moments, 
which thrill the blood and give essential unity to the 
work, are not revelations of individual personality, but 
high expressions of patriotic ardor, such as Edward's 
summons to his warriors after his recovery from his 
" follies seege against a faithful louer " (II, ii, 201 ff) ; the 
knighting and arming of ^ the Black Prince for the wars 
(III, iii, 172 ff); the magnificent tableau that brings in 
the prince to his father triumphant after Crecy (III, v, 
60 S) ; and the effective revulsion of the last scene, which, 
straight on the news of disaster, gives assurance of un- 
imagined victory and lowers the curtain on the picture 
of exultant England. 

During the last three or four years of the sixteenth 
century, the type of drama rather adumbrated than ex- 
empHfied in "Edward III" was developed by Shake- 
speare into a distinct species and illustrated by four 
plays composed in close succession: the two parts of 
"Henry IV," "Henry V," and "Julius Caesar." The 
Henry IV and Henry V plays form a closely con- 
nected series presenting a well-matured theory of royal 
responsibility and governmental ethics by means of 
their picture of the character evolution of a great na- 
tional leader. It is the figure of the prince, as heir ap- 
parent, and as king, that gives unity and purpose to 
the trilogy — less, indeed, as the conventional dramatic 
hero who shapes the action, than as the ideal hypothet- 
ical type by which Shakespeare illustrates his phi- 
losophy of statecraft and kingship. 

^ The sequence of these events as given in the play varies from 
that of history. The battle of Crecy really occurred in 13-16, the sur- 
render of Calais in 1347, the battle of Poitiers not till 1356. 



THE HISTORY PLAY 333 

It can scarcely be doubted that the play of "Henry 
V," regularly announced in the Epilogue to "Henry 
IV, Part II," was definitely under contemplation when 
the first part of "Henry IV" was conceived. Indeed, 
an unnecessary allusion in the last act of " Richard II " 
(V, iii, 1-22) to the young prince's "dissolute and 
desperate " character, through which Bolingbroke dis- 
cerns "some sparks of better hope, which elder years 
May happily bring forth," makes it probable that the 
poet was already considering the dramatic portrayal 
of this figure. It may very reasonably be questioned, 
however, whether, when Shakespeare undertook, about 
1596 or 1597, to follow up his study, in Richard II and 
Bolingbroke, of two imperfect and antagonistic mo- 
narchic types by a delineation of his ideal prince, he had 
any idea of devoting more than a single play to that 
prince's preparation for sovereignty and another to his 
triumphant reign. The second part of "Henry IV," 
like the second part of "Tamburlaine," seems to be 
an originally unpremeditated addition, occasioned by 
the enormous effectiveness of the by -figure of Falstaff. 
Xhis genial character must have expanded in its devel- 
opment far beyond the limits at first intended for it, 
and thus necessitated the splitting of the political 
matter of Henry IV's reign, in itself hardly sufficient 
for a single drama, into two plays. The result is that 
the serious historical theme, which certainly repre- 
sents the poet's primary conception, is continually 
being threatened with eclipse by the anachronistic 
comic scenes of sixteenth - century merriment and 
topical allusion. It is even true that the portrayal of 
the prince's preparation for government, besides being 
thus thrust into the background, is actually obscured 



334 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

by the division. The first play ends abruptly in order 
to leave scope for the second; yet much of the second 
part is notwithstanding a mere variation of material 
already used in the first; and the effect of the two parts 
when taken together is less that of steady dramatic 
progress than of march and counter-march. The great 
scenes, for example, which depict Falstaff's arrest at 
the suit of Dame Quickly and his impressment of 
soldiers in Gloucestershire (Part II, II, i; III, ii) are 
brilliant amplifications of suggestions more hastily 
and prodigally thrown out in the first part (III, iii, 
60-101; IV, ii). Naturally, the tendency to repetition 
is yet more striking in the historical scenes, where 
actual scantiness of material could less readily be eked 
out by imagination. Virtually everything necessary 
to fit the Henry IV plays for their original purpose 
as preliminary to a drama on the reign of Henry V is 
accomplished in the first part. The triumph of the 
prince's nobler aspirations over the attractions of dis- 
solute company, his reconciliation with his father, and 
the supreme vindication of his heroic valor in the over- 
throw of Hotspur are here complete. The play needs 
only scenes indicating the King's death and the final 
dismissal of Falstaff to stand forth as we may suspect 
it was first designed, perfect in itself and a full induc- 
tion to the treatment of the hero's triumphant reign. 
As it is, however, the demand for more Falstaff scenes 
brings the prince back among his old irresistible but 
unedifying companions with a sudden revulsion which, 
after the exalted strain on which the first part ends, 
makes his character appear a little weak. Again he 
loses his father's confidence, and has this time to regain 
it by means of declamation rather than action. Mean- 



THE HISTORY PLAY 335 

time, the memory of the laurels won from Hotspur at 
Shrewsbury — an episode intended surely as the pre- 
lude which should usher in the wars of France and 
introduce the conqueror of Agincourt — grows dim 
through long unmartial acts where the prince appears 
but seldom, and the reader's attention follows the 
chicaneries of Northumberland and Prince John or the 
equally irrelevant knaveries of Falstaff . 

There will hardly be found a critic to wish for one 
play of "Henry IV" instead of two. Falstaff is assur- 
edly as great a favorite with the universal modern 
public as he seems to have been with Shakespeare and 
Queen Elizabeth. But it is necessary to consider the 
degree in which this most tremendous of comic figures 
probably affected Shakespeare's treatment of history, 
in order to gauge the intention of the political scenes 
in "Henry IV" and to understand the reason in part 
also for his abrupt cutting off in the pure history play 
of "Henry V." Had Falstaff been dealt with as sum- 
marily as Mercutio in "Romeo and Juliet," the trilogy 
we are considering would have lost immeasurably in 
human interest, but surely it would have gained in 
homogeneity. As matters stand, the student of the 
individual plays is almost certain, in reading either 
of the first two, to be diverted from the state of Plan- 
tagenet England to Shakespeare's Gloucestershire and 
the streets of contemporary London. Yet when the 
entire series is viewed comprehensively, as it should 
be, it is not difficult to see the lesson which the poet 
read behind the progress of events, and which he has 
here intended to enforce. The moral of the three 
Henry V plays is that which Shakespeare has strongly 
expressed elsewhere: the responsibility of the ruler 



336 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

both to his subjects and to higher power. This feeling 
inspires everywhere Shakespeare's repugnance to any- 
thing amateurish in government, whether expressed 
in the mob-rule of Jack Cade and the Roman rabble 
or in the anointed incapacity of Richard 11. But 
though he shows clearly that Richard II deserved to 
fall, he emphasizes no less strongly, in the prophecies 
of the Bishop of Carlisle and Richard himself, and ia. 
the continual misery of the crowned Bolingbroke, that 
an equal scourge afHicts him who by any indirection 
seizes the royal burden with him who seeks to escape it. 
"Henry IV" paints the gradual development in the 
young prince of the ideals of kingly service, capacity, 
justice, and patriotic fervor which Shakespeare de- 
manded of the monarch; and "Henry V" is a triumph- 
ant finale, to be considered, not separately, but in closest 
connection with the study in character building which 
it immediately followed and completed. As "Richard 
II" and "Henry IV" both demonstrate the punish- 
ment of those who trifle with royalty, so this play pic- 
tures the enormous possibilities of personal glory and 
national service within the reach of that ruler who 
performs unshrinkingly and thoroughly the full duties 
of justly assumed dominion. 

The earliest production of "Henry V" can be as- 
signed to the summer of 1599 by reason of the allusion 
in the Prologue before the fifth act to the Earl of Essex's 
absence in Ireland (Apr. 15 - Sept. 28, 1599) ; and all 
evidence so far discovered tends to limit the date of 
"Julius Caesar" to the same year or that which fol- 
lowed. The latter play is Shakespeare's consummate 
attempt at presenting under dramatic form a phi- 
losophy of history; just as "Macbeth," "Antony and 



THE HISTORY PLAY 337 

Cleopatra," and "Coriolanus" remain his most per- 
fect examples of pure historical tragedy. The remote- 
ness of the material treated gives to all these dramas 
a universal application hardly obtainable in the por- 
trayal of the more immediate past. The main subject 
of "Julius Caesar" is not a single figure, whether Csesar 
himself or Brutus. It is rather the vindication in the 
rotten commonwealth of Rome of the constant force of 
that political Nemesis whose operation in the course 
of English history Shakespeare had already shown. 
The play's claim to unity lies in the singleness of pur- 
pose with which it enunciates the moral, already 
exemplified in the career of Bolingbroke, that every 
effort to achieve law and order by lawless means must 
end in futility and sorrow. Csesar, the egoist, and the 
idealist Brutus perish alike by reason of their rash 
attack upon the sacred power of authorized govern- 
ment, which in Shakespeare's teaching revenges every 
atterript at tyrannical or anarchic interference. The 
grim pathos and irony of this play, one of Shakespeare's 
greatest and most thoughtful works, lies mainly in 
the swift inevitable precision with which Brutus after 
the murder of Csesar finds himself threatened by the 
same ideals of governmental order he has so irrespon- 
sibly tried to champion. The demagogic Antony and 
the Roman mob are blind instruments by which a high 
power pursues Brutus, exactly as through him it had 
punished Csesar. Thus, the closing acts of the play 
have for their main function the development of 
Brutus 's desperate realization that in him and his 
selfish companions are reproduced all the evils for 
which Csesar fell.^ The ghost that harries Brutus is, 
1 Cf. Julius Casar, IV, iii, 18 ff. 



338 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

of course, in no sense the spirit of one unjustly slain, 
seeking vengeance upon the guilty murderer. Such a 
conception would totally degrade the character of the 
hero, and negative that of Caesar, whom Shakespeare 
clearly follows Plutarch in holding worthy of death. 
Rather, the ghost is to be regarded as the embodi- 
ment of outraged authority; and Philippi is the scene 
not of personal revenge, but of the triumph of that 
supernal law of ordered government which chastises 
even in morally innocent and noble offenders every 
movement subversive of the balance of cosmic serenity. 

In the play which most immediately followed "Julius 
Caesar," in "Hamlet," Shakespeare left the realm of 
serious history. Here, however, he treated in a mythi- 
cal subject, and upon dramatic lines already laid 
down, a not dissimilar problem concerning the violent 
putting right of a world which has grown out of joint. 
Many of the hesitations and difficulties of the Prince 
of Denmark have their origin in the conception of 
political and personal responsibility which Shakespeare 
has enunciated in the parallel case of Brutus. 

An enormous number of plays on quasi-historical 
subjects, often bearing the names of actual personages, 
are in reality mere compilations of traditional or in- 
vented romance. Such, for example, are the anony- 
mous "George a Greene" and "Fair Em," Greene's 
"James IV," and Dekker's "Shoemaker's Holiday." 
Another instance, ostensibly less irregular, is Peele's 
"Famous Chronicle of King Edward the First " (1593), 
a long work distinguished by some fine bursts of un- 
dramatic poetry, but absurd in structure and in con- 
tent. Several of the most extraordinary violations of 
history and possibility in this play appear to have been 



THE HISTORY PLAY 339 

taken from a ballad called "A Warning Piece to Eng- 
land against Pride and Wickedness," in which Ed- 
ward's queen, Eleanor of Castile, is held up to con- 
temporary prejudice as a pattern of Spanish sin and 
vindictiveness.^ Other marvellous episodes are wanton 
inventions of the poet, and the play lacks little of 
being, like "James IV," a complete excursus into the 
province of fiction. 

The most popular subjects with the fabricators of 
pseudo-historical drama appear to have been the tales 
of pre-Conquest Britain and the much -storied age 
of Richard I and Robin Hood. The heterogeneous 
"Knack to Know a Knave" touches lightly upon the 
legends of King Edgar and Bishop Dunstan. In the 
anonymous "Chronicle History of King Leir and his 
Three Daughters" and in Shakespeare's "Cymbe- 
line," an admixture of spurious history gives weight 
and coherence to the romantic scenes upon which both 
plays mainly depend for their very different degrees of 
success. Shakespeare's "Eang Lear" changes the tone 
of its borrowed material from comedy to tragedy and 
from romance to realism, without making the his- 
toric element in any way more accurate or important. 
"Nobody and Somebody," an undated play, belonging 
probably to the beginning of the seventeenth century, 
blends a realistic comic plot of contemporary interest 
with "the true Chronicle Historic of Elydure, who was 
fortunately three several times crowned King of Eng- 
land." So, Middleton^ "Mayor of Queenborough " 

1 It may be that the ballad follows the play instead of preceding 
it. However, the question of priority is not of essential consequence, 
since both works obviously express a perfectly general attitude of the 
literature of the day. 



340 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

and the pseudo-Shakespearean "Birth of Merlin" use 
the shadowy tissue of pre-Arthurian legend as a back- 
ground for the scenes of intrigue comedy in which the 
age of James found its highest amusement. Similar in 
spirit to the last - ngentioned plays, and probably 
roughly contemporary with them, is R. A(rmin?)'s 
"Valiant Welshman" (1615), which likewise adorns 
the highly colored picture of its hero, Caractacus 
(Caradoc), with the varied attractions of magical 
superstition, realistic burlesque, and lurid melodrama. 

A different treatment of early English history, 
shortly subsequent to the Conquest, is found in Dek- 
ker's interesting " Satiromastix " (1602). Here the 
author, after having apparently designed an imagina- 
tive tragedy on the subject of William Rufus and Sir 
Walter TjTrel, was led by the exigencies of the "War 
of the Theatres" to give the main story a hasty comic 
termination, and to interweave a satirical underplot 
dealing nominally with the Augustan Age at Rome, 
and really w4th the no less incongruous literary dis- 
putes of the passing moment. Despite the bizarre 
mingling of three distant ages thus effected, and the 
total sacrifice of plot unity, "Satiromastix" is still a 
readable play with genuine comic interest. The one 
important tragic scene ^ which the drama contains in 
its present form is also worthy both of Dekker's high 
reputation for pathos and of the place which Charles 
Lamb gave it in his "Specimens of the English Dra- 
matic Poets." 

English history during the reigns of the Angevin 
kings had formed the subject, as we have seen, of three 
chronicle plays of the earliest type in the two parts of 
1 Ed. Scherer. 11. 2081 ff. 



THE HISTORY PLAY 341 

the "Troublesome Reign of John" and in Shake- 
speare's "King John." The same epoch is portrayed, 
though with much less emphasis upon historic fact, 
in the two plays of "Robert, Earl of Huntington," of 
which the earlier certainly belongs rather to romantic 
comedy than to the historical drama. 

The interesting comedy of "Look About You" 
(1600), treating the later years of Henry II, is clearly 
illustrative of the history play in the stage of disinte- 
gration which we are considering. The choice of title 
in this work, as well as in "Nobody and Somebody," 
shows how the pure historical theme was losing at- 
tractiveness on the stage of 1600; and the mixed plot 
testifies alike to an unwillingness to stake the interest 
of the piece upon the frank presentation of chronicle 
material. "Look About You" is a lively play, with a 
superabundance of clever and exciting scenes, hinging 
usually upon one or another of a great variety of dis- 
guise motives. It is, however, far too confused in struc- 
ture and too irresponsible in purpose to merit the title 
of a good play on any just analysis. It possesses sev- 
eral points of contact with other plays dealing with 
the same early Plantagenet period. In its portrait 
of the page, "Robin Hood, Earl of Huntington," it 
serves as a prelude to the Huntington dramas of Mun- 
day and Chettle; while its treatment of the initial 
stages in the love affair between Prince Richard and 
Lady Falconbridge brings it into a like relation to the 
King John plays. The main significance of "Look 
About You," as regards the history of the chronicle 
play, lies, however, in the author's evident recogni- 
tion of the inadequacy of all these historical subjects 
to hold the attention of his audience, unless supported 



342 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

by the extraneous farce and sensationalism which he 
weaves around the figures of Skink and Gloucester. 

"The BHnd Beggar of Bednal Green," by Day and 
Chettle, is a thoroughly entertaining play, which 
makes very much the same kind of appeal as "Look 
About You," and stands in the same general relation 
to the facts of history. These two comedies occupy 
an intermediate position between the two dramatic 
classes into which the chronicle play broke, as the type 
lost its original freshness. In the plays of the first class, 
illustrated by "James IV" and "George a Greene," 
the historical matter is essentially unreal and uncon- 
vincing. In certain other decadent history plays, how- 
ever, the authors have found it possible to transfer the 
chief interest from the great political events and per- 
sonages to more romantic elements, without abso- 
lutely falsifying the history of the period in which they 
set their plots. It is entirely as imaginary comedies 
that "Look About You" and "The Blind Beggar" 
make their appeal. Yet the picture of the troubles 
between Henry II and his rebellious sons in the one 
play, and the picture of the French wars of Henry VI 
and the rivalry between Duke Humphrey and Car- 
dinal Beaufort in the other, are, on the whole, not 
falsely painted. 

Better examples of this type of play, which subordi- 
nates history, without entirely distorting it, are Sam- 
uel Rowley's "When You See INIe, You Know Me, 
Or the famous Chronicle History of King Henry the 
Eight" and Dekker's "Whore of Babylon." Rowley 
gives a vivid sketch of informal life at Henry's court 
by means of scenes which in themselves are for the 
most part trivial or even imaginary. Dekker, as his 



THE HISTORY PLAY 343 

apocalyptic title indicates, satirizes the Roman 
Church, by presenting the chief occurrences of Eliza- 
beth's reign in allegorical drapery. 

Toward the close of the sixteenth century, Shake- 
speare's Company staged an occurrence in the foreign 
history of the previous generation in "A Lamm for 
London, or the Siege of Antwerp." The portrayal of 
the scenes attending the capture of Antwerp by the 
Spanish (1576) is reminiscent of the first part of Mar- 
lowe's "Massacre at Paris," with which this play even 
shares one phrase.^ But the main attention of the 
author of the "Larum" is fixed less upon history itself 
than upon two extraneous concerns. With the homi- 
letic intention suggested by the first title, facts are 
garbled in order to present the Antwerp disaster as 
a retribution for civic short-sightedness; and a large 
fictional interest is added in the portrayal of the 
"ventrous actes and valorous deeds of the lame sol- 
dier," — a popular type of the day represented not 
dissimilarly in the Cavalicro Dick Bowyer of "The 
Trial of Chivalry" and in Ralph in "The Shoemaker's 
Holiday." 

Probably the fairest instances of the late history 
play in its shift toward imaginary comedy are the four 
dramas of Thomas Heywood which deal with the 
reigns of Edward IV and Elizabeth respectively. Hey- 
wood — a prose Shakespeare, as Lamb called him — 
has the point of view of the novelist rather than the 
playwright, and in his treatment of history he antici- 
pates strikingly the method of the modem historical 

1 Merely the cry of the Second Spaniard, "Tue tue, tue! " (ed. 
Simpson, p. 64). Cf. Massacre at Paris, 1. 340. The use of French in 
the former case is striking. 



814 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

romancer. In the two Edward IV plays, the great per- 
sonages and the important national events of the reign 
are pushed far into the background, where they serve 
to set off the presentation of minor figures and of inci- 
dents mainly apocryphal. Thus, the important subjects 
of the work are the adventures of the miller of Tam- 
worth, of INIistress Shore and her abused husband, — 
all excellently depicted ; the trifling episode of Falcon- 
bridge's siege of London, and the almost purely ima- 
ginary French campaign. The complete absorption of 
history in fiction is interestingly apparent when we 
compare these plays, admirable in their way, with 
Shakespeare's handling of the same period in "3 Henry 
VI" and "Richard III." To enroll the former works 
among serious history plays would be as great an im- 
pertinence as to catalogue "A Tale of Two Cities" 
among the histories of the French Revolution. 

The two curious plays dealing with Queen Eliza- 
beth, to which Heywood gives the boastful title, "If 
You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody," have abso- 
lutely no connection in subject or manner. The first 
part takes up 'J'udor history just where another form- 
less work of the time, the "Sir Thomas Wyat" of 
Dekker and Webster, drops it. Heywood records the 
troubles of the Princess Elizabeth during the reign of 
her sister Mary very much in the same spirit in which 
Scott deals with the troubles of Amy Robsart. The 
long second part of "If You Know Not Me" is in no 
proper sense historic. It resembles the same author's 
" Four Prentices of London " in being a very far-fetched 
tribute to the London bourgeoisie; and its loose plot 
centres about the typical embodiment of citizen thrift. 
Sir Thomas Gresham, and his Royal Exchange. The 



THE HISTORY PLAY 345 

addition in the last few pages of a jaded account of the 
defeat of the Armada is obvious clap-trap. 

After 1600, the vogue of the real history play de- 
clined rapidly. Nearly the whole compass of English 
history, mythical and real, and all the more effective 
foreign themes had been brought uj)on the stage, and 
the public appetite was glutted. Henceforth the his- 
toric title practically vanishes, and the chronicles are 
searched only for purely romantic matter. The latest 
examples of the true English history play are probably 
the incongruous "Life of Henry the Eighth," com- 
posed about 1613^ by Fletcher in conjunction with 
Shakespeare, and John Ford's historical tragedy of 
"Perkin Warbeck."2 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

GENERAL DISCUSSION 

Schelling, P. E., The English Chronicle Play. A Study in the 
Popular Historical Literature environing Shakespeare, 1902. 

INDIVIDUAL TEXTS 
A. Experimental Chronicle Plays op Mixed Type 

1. PLAYS dealing WITH FOREIGN HISTORY 

Marlowe, Christopher : Tamburlaine, Parts I and II. See 
bibliography, p. 254. 

The Massacre at Paris. " With the Death of Guise." Un- 
dated octavo, " E. A. for Edward White." 

^ The accuracy of this date has been ineffectively disputed. See 
K. Elze, Sk. Jb., ix (1874), 55-86, who argues in favor of 1603. 

* From the foreign field it is possible to add the anonymous 
tragedy of Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt, ascribed in part to 
Fletcher, and Chapman's Wars of Pompey and Cassar (1031), and 
Tragedy of Chabot (1639). 



Si6 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

The Jew of Malta. See bibliography, p. 228. 

LoiH^K, Thomas* : The "Wounds of Civil War. "Liuelyset 
forth in the true Tragedies of Maxiiis ami Scilla," loiU. Re- 
jtnnlgd, \y. C. Hazlitt, Dcnislfi/, vii. Discitssion : R. Carl, 
" Uber Thomas Lodge's Leben und Werke," Anglia, x (18S8), 
235-288. (Sep:vr.-\tely printed as Halle diss., 1887.) 

Peklk, Gkoko.k : The Battle of Alcazar. " fought iu Barbarie, 
botweene Sebastian king of rortugall, and Abdelmeloc king 
of Maroeco. With the death of Captaine Stukeley," loM. 
lifprinted, Dyee, Peele's Works. 

Grkknk, Rohkkt ? : The First Part of the Tragical Reign of 
Selinius, •• sometime Kmperoiir of the Turkos, and grand- 
father to him that now raigaeth," ir)lVi. Re-issued 1G38, 
"Written T. (i." Keprinied, A. B. Grosart, Greene's Works, 
vol. xiv. Separately reprinted, A. B. Grosart, Tftnple Drama- 
tists, 1898. Discussion : C. Crawfortl, " Spenser, Locrine, and Se- 
limus," J' A'o/f.< and Queries, \i\ (ISXU); reprinted, Ci>llectanea, 
First Series (11XX>\ 47-100 ; 1\ A. Daniel, Athettceum 3G77, 
Apr. 16, 1808 ; II. Gilbert, A'. Greene's Selimus, Kiel, 1S99. 

i. ri„\YS DE.\L1NG WITH EMU.1SH HISTOKY 

The Troublesome Reign of John King of England. Two 
parts, ir>01. tether editions : llUl, •' Written by W. Sh.," and 
1022, "Written by W. Shakespeare." Reprinted, W. C. 
Hazlitt, Shakespeare's Librarij, vol. v, 187o. Discussion: G. C. 
Moore Smith, " Shakespeare's King John and the Trouble- 
some Reign," Fumivall Miscellani/ (1001), 3i>o ff. 

Shakkspkake, "William : King John. First printed in the 1623 
Folio. 

The Life and Death of Jack Straw, " A notable Rebell in 
England: Who was kild in Smithtield by the LonI Maior of 
London," loOo. Heprinted, W. C. Ha/litt, DiMisIei/, v. 

The True Tragedy of Richard the Third, 15iH. Reprinteti, B. 
Field, ^'/l<l.^v^7lc■<l/v^\)(•lVr(/, 1844; W. 0. Hazlitt, Shales}>ettre's 
Libniru. v. lS7o. Discussion: G. B. Churchill, "Richard III 
bis Shakespeare." Pahrstni, x (liXX^V 

The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth. " containing the 
Honourable Battell of Agin-court," lolV>. Facsimile, 1887. 
Reprinted, W. C. Hazlitt, Shales}>eare's Library/, v, 1875. 

1 Henry VI. First printed in the Shakespeare Folio, 1023. 



THE HISTORY PLAY 847 

2 Henry VI. Extant in three versions. 

(a) " The First Part of the Contention betwixt the two fa- 

mous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, with the death 
of the good Duke Humphrey," 1594. Reprinted (two 
irapVessions ?), 1600. Modern editions : J. O. Halliwell, 
Shakespeare Society, 1843; W. C. Hazlitt, Shakespeare's 
Library, v, 1875. Facsimile, C. Pn-etorins, 1889. 

(b) Slightly altered version (with Part III) in "The Whole 

Contention botweone the two Famous Houses, Lancaster 
and Yorke." Undated, but sliown by continuous pagi- 
nation to be contemporary with the 1619 edition of Per- 
icles. Facsimiles, 1886. 

(c) Expanded and improved text in the Shakespeare Folio, 

1623. 

3 Henry VI. Extant in three versions. 

(fl) " The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, and the 
death of good King Henrie the Sixt . . . acted by the 
Right Honourable the P^arl of Pembrooke his seruauts," 
1595. Facsiviile, 1891. Reprinted 1600. Modern edi- 
tions; see C Henry VI (a). 

(b) Slightly altered version in " The Whole Contention " 

(1619). See J Henry VI (h). 

(c) Expanded and improved text in the Shakespeare Folio, 

1623. Discussion : E. Maloue, " Dissertation on the 
Three Parts of King Henry VI," Boswell's Malone, xviii, 
1821; R. Grant White, "Essay on the Authorship of 
King Henry the Sixth," Shakespeare, vol. vii, 1859; 
Miss Jane Lee, Trans. New Sh. Soc, 1875-76, 219-312. 

B. Biographical Chronicle Plats 

Sir John Oldcastle. " The first part of the true and honour- 
able historic of the life of Sir John Oldcastle, the good Lord 
Cobham," 1600. Reprinted, C. F. T. Brooke, The Shakespeare 
Apocrypha ; P. Simpson, Malone Society. Another version, 
" Written by William Shakespeare." Dated 1600. but printed, 
probably, in 1619. Reprinted, J. R. Macarthur, 1907. For other 
editions, see bibliography in The Shakespeare Apocrypha. Dis- 
cussion : R. S. Forsythe, " Certain Sources of Sir John Old- 
castle," Mod. Lang. Notes, xxvi (1911), 104-107. 

Thomas Lord Cromwell. " The True Chronicle Historic of 



348 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

the whole life and death of Thomas Lord Cromwell. . . . 
Written by W. S." Reprinted 1613, and in the third and 
fourth Shakespeare Folios, 1664 and 1685. For modern edi- 
tions, see bibliography in The Shakespeare Apocrypha. 

Stukeley: "The Famous Historye of the life and death of 
Captaine Thomas Stukeley. With liis marriage to Alderman 
Curteis Daughter, and valiant ending of his life at the Battaile 
of Alcazar," 1605. Reprinted, R. Simpson, The School of 
Shakspere, vol. i, 1878. 

Sir Thomas More. MS. in British Museum, Harleian 7368. 
Facsimile, J. S. Farmer. Printed, A. Dyce, Shakespeare Society, 
1844; A. F. Hopkinson, 1902 ; C. F. T. Brooke, The Shake- 
speare Apocrypha. Discussion : R. Simpson, " Are there any 
extant MSS. in Shakespeare's Handwriting ? " ^ Notes and 
Queries, viii (1871), 1 ff ; J. Spedding, " Shakespeare's Hand- 
writing," 4 Notes and Queries, x (1872), 227 ; J. Spedding, iZe- 
views and Discussions, 1879, " On a Question concerning a 
Supposed Specimen of Shakespeare's Handwriting." 

C. Historical Tragedies 

Marlowe, Christopher : Edward II, 1594. Probably first 
printed in 1593. Reprinted 1598, 1612, 1622. For later edi- 
tions, see list in Oxford edition of Marlowe, 1910, p. 312. 

Marlowe and Nash : The Tragedy of Dido Queen of Car- 
thage. " Written by Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nash," 
1594. Reprinted, Hurst, Robinson and Co., The Old English 
Drama, 1825; all editions of Marlowe; editions of Nash by 
Grosart (1885) and R. B. McKerrow, vol. ii, 1904. 

Shakespeare, William: The Tragedy of King Richard the 
Third, 1597. Reprinted 1598, 1602, 1605, 1612, 1622, 1629, 
1634. Altered version in the Shakespeare Folio, 1623. Dis- 
cussion: J. Spedding, " On the Corrected Edition of Richard 
III," Transactions Neio Shakspere Society, 1875-76, 1-75. 

The Tragedy of King Richard the Second, 1597. Reprinted 
1598. Later editions, adding the abdication scene, 1608 (two 
issues), 1615, 1634. Corrected version in the Shakespeare 
Folio, 1623. 

Macbeth. First printed in the 1623 Folio. 

Antony and Cleopatra. First printed in the 1623 Folio. 

Coriolanus. First printed in the 1623 Folio. 



THE HISTORY PLAY 349 

The Tragedy of Woodstock. MS. in British Museum (Eger- 
ton 1954). Printed, J. O, Halliwell, 1870 (11 copies); 
W. Keller, Shakespeare Jahrbuch, xxxv (1899), 3-121. 

JoNSON, Benjamin : Sejanus his Fall, 1605. Reprinted in the 
first Jonscn Folio, 1616. 
Catiline his Conspiracy, 1611. Reprinted in 1616 Folio. 

Chapman, George: The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles 
Duke of Biron, Marshal of France. Two Parts. 1608. Re- 
printed 1625. 

Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt. MS. in British Museum 
(Add. 18653). Printed, A. H. Bullen. Old Plays, ii, 1883. 

The Tragedy of Nero. " Newly Written," 1624. Reprinted, A. 
H. Bullen, Old Plays, i, 1882 ; Mermaid series, 1888. 

Ford, John : The Chronicle History of Perkin Warbeck, 
1634. Reprinted, Ford's Works, Mermaid edition. 

(For several other possible members of this class, see bibliogra- 
phy to chapter vi, p. 228 f .) 

D. History Plays of Philosophic Import 

The Reign of King Edward the Third, 1596 ; reprinted 

1599. For later editions and criticism, see The Shakespeare 

Apocrypha. 
Shakespeare, William. The History of Henry the Fourth. 

Part I, 1598. Other editions 1599, 1604, 1608, 1613, 1622, 

1632, 1639 ; Shakespeare Folio, 1623. 

The Second Part of Henry the Fotirth, " continuing to his 
death and coronation of Henrie the flft," 1600 (two issues). 

The Chronicle History of Henry the Fifth. " With his bat- 
tell fought at Agin Court in France," 1600. Reprinted 1602, 
1608. More accurate, fuller text in Shakespeare Folio, 1623. 

Julius Caesar. First printed in the 1623 Folio. 

E. Romanticized History Plays 

I. plays in which the historical element is imaginary 
OR insignificant 

Peele, George : Edward the First. " With his returne from 
the holy land. Also the life of Lleuellen, rebell in Wales. 
Lastly, the sinking of Qneene Elinor," 1593. Reprinted in 
Dyce's editions of Peele. See bibliography, p. 254. 



350 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

A Knack to Know a Knave, 1594. Cf. p. 146. 

Greene, Robert : The Scottish History of James the 
Fourth, 1598. Cf. p. 293. 

George a Greene, the Pinner of "Wakefield, 1599. Cf. p. 293. 

The True Chronicle History of King Leir and his Three 
Daughters, 1594. Another edition, 1605. Reprinted, W. C. 
Hazlitt, Shakespeare's Library ; Sidney Lee, Shakespeare Clas- 
sics, 1909. 

Shakespeare, William : King Lear, 1609. Another edition 
bearing same date, but probably printed in 1619. Altered text 
in 1623 Folio. 
Cymbeline. First printed in the 1623 Folio. 

Dekker, Thomas: Old Fortunatus, 1600. Ed. H. Scherer, 
Munchener Beitrdge, xxi (1901). 

The Shoemaker's Holiday, " Or, The Gentle Craft. With 
the humorous life of Simon Eyre, shoomaker, and Lord 
Maior of London," 1600. Other editions, 1610, 1618, 1624, 
1631, 1657. 
Satiromastiz, " Or the untrussing of the Humorous Poet," 
1602. See bibliography on p. 388. 

Nobody and Somebody. " With the true Chronicle Historie 
of Elydure, who was fortunately three seuerall times crowned 
King of England," n. d. Reprinted, Glasgow, 1877 (50 copies) ; 
R. Simpson, The School of Shakspere, vol. i, 1878. 

The Valiant Welshman, " Or The True Chronicle History 
of the life and valiant deedes of Caradoc the Great, King of 
Cambria, now called Wales," 1615. Another edition, 1663. 
" Written by R. A. Gent." 

MiDDLETON, Thomas : The Mayor of Queenborough, 1651. 
Reprinted in the Mermaid and other editions of Middleton. 

Rowley, William (and Shakespeare ?) : The Birth of Mer- 
lin: Or, the Child hath found his Father. " Written by 
William Shakespear and William Rowley," 1662. See bibli- 
ography in The Shakespeare Apocrypha. 

II. PLAYS in which GENUINE HISTORIC INTEREST IS BLENDED 
WITH INTERESTS OF OTHER KINDS 

Look About You, 1600, Reprinted, W. C. Hazlitt, Dodsley, 

vii. 
Heywood, Thomas : King Edward the Fourth. Two Parts, 



THE HISTORY PLAY 351 

1600. Other editions, 1605, 1613, 1619, 1626. Reprinted, B. 
Field, Shakespeare Society, 1842. 

If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody, « Or, The 
troubles of Queene Elizabeth." Part 1. 1605. Other edi- 
tions, 1606, 1608, 1610, 1613, 1623, 1632, 1639. Part II. 
" With the building of the Royal Exchange : And the famous 
Victorie of Queene Elizabeth, in the Yeare 1588," 1606. 
Other editions, 1609, 1623 ?, 1632. Reprinted (both parts), 
J. P. Collier, Shakespeare Society, 1851. 
A Larum for London ; or the Siege of Antwerp, 1602. 
Reprinted, R. Simpson, The School of Shakspere, No. 1, 1872. 
Rowley, Samuel : "When You See Me, You Know Me, 
" Or the famous Chronicle Historic of king Henry the eight," 
1605. Other editions, 1613, 1621, 1632. Reprinted, K. Elze, 
1874. 
Dekker, Thomas, and Webster, John: The Famous History 
of Sir Thomas Wyat. " With the Coronation of Queen 
Mary, and the coming in of King Philip," 1607. Another 
edition, 1612. Reprinted, editions of Dekker (1873) and Web- 
ster (1830, 1857, 1877). Discussion: F. E. Pierce, "The Col- 
laboration of Webster and Dekker," Yale Studies in English, 
1909. 
Dekker, Thomas: The "Whore of Babylon, 1607. 
Day, John: The Blind Beggar of Bednal -Green, "with 
The merry humor of Tom Strowd the Norfolk Yeoman," 
1659. Reprinted, A. H. BuUen, The Works of John Day, 1881, 
vol. ii. 



CHAPTER X 

DRAMA OF CONTEMPORARY INCIDENT 

The abnormal conditions, sketched at the beginning 
of the last chapter, which fostered the sudden vogue, 
about 1590, of the rude history play, stimulated the 
growth of another tjT)e of drama similarly possessed 
of ephemeral attractiveness, and equally capable of 
hasty collaborative production. During the sixteen 
years between 1592, when "Arden of Feversham" was 
published, and 1608, when "A Yorkshire Tragedy" 
first appeared in print, at least nine dramas are re- 
corded, which derive their subject from contemporary 
murders; and this number can easily be raised to a 
dozen by the inclusion of several problematical mem- 
bers of the species. 

The reasons for this prolific exemplification, during 
the last years of the sixteenth century and the first 
years of the seventeenth, of a peculiar dramatic genre 
hardly to be found before or after are the same for the 
murder plays as for the cruder efforts in the staging 
of history. The former type, like the other, could be 
produced with great speed, and demanded in general 
little originality of conception or treatment. They 
were furthermore recommended by the powerful box- 
office consideration that the gruesome matter they 
handled maintained a peculiarly strong hold upon the 
minds of the Elizabethan public. How strong this hold 
was no one will require to be told who has glanced over 
the entries for the period in the Stationers' Register, 



DRAMA OF CONTEMPORARY INCIDENT 353 

or is conversant with any branch of the current Utera- 
ture of the time. Ballad broadsides, chronicles, and 
homilies all testify to an unusually "lively interest in 
murders and scaffold eloquence. A very good instance 
of this trend of the sensational journalism of the day 
is Anthony Munday's "View of Sundry Examples. 
Reporting many straunge murthers, sundry persons 
periured, Signes and tokens of Gods anger towards us 
— And all memorable murthers since the murther of 
Maister Saunders by George Browne to this present 
and bloody murther of Abell Bourne, Hosyer, who 
dwelled in Newgate Market, 1580." ^ The Chronicles 
of Holinshed and Stow, the great historical reposi- 
tories of the epoch, are full of tales of recent homicide, 
reported with the most serious care; and it is only 
natural that the dramatic tyros, who searched their 
pages for material, did not discriminate more closely 
than the authors themselves between true history and 
vulgar horror. 

Of the known murder plays — merely a small frac- 
tion, probably, of the total output of the period — a 
number survive only in the mention of "Henslowe's 
Diary." Such are " Page of Plymouth " by Jonson and 
Dekker, acted in 1599; "Cox of Collumpton," by 
Day and Haughton, 1599; two parts of "The Black 
Dog of Newgate," by Day, Smith, Hathway, and an- 
other poet, 1602-1603; probably also the two parts of 
"Black Bateman of the North," 1598, in which Chet- 
tle, Dekker, Drayton, and Wilson were all concerned. 
The precise subject of the last work is not certain, but 

' This curious treatise was reprinted by J. P. Collier as an appen- 
dix to his edition of Munday's John a Kent and John a Cumber, 
Shakespeare Society, 1851. 



854 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

the others all dealt with notorious crimes of the day; 
and they show Henslowc at his usual practice of era- 
ploying a number of low-salaried hacks in the rapid 
preparation of theatrical "shockers." In the case of 
"The Black Dog of Newgate," it would seem that the 
manager did not even know the name of one of the 
authors, whom he refers to four times as " the other 
poet," — apparently somebody called in at a pinch to 
help Day, Smith, and Ilathway. 

"Page of Plymouth," which Henslowc mentions in 
August, 1509, is interesting because it gives us a 
glimpse of Ben Jonson within two years after his first 
appearance among dramatic writers. The entry reads : 
"Lent vnto wm Borne alles birde the 10 of aguste 1594 
to Lend vnto bengemyne Johnsone & thomas deckers 
in earneste of ther boock well they [are] a writtenge 
called pagge of p[le]motli the some — xxxxs." Eight 
pounds was the entire amount paid for the work, that 
being, on Ilcnslowe's niggardly scale, the full aver- 
age price of a drama. The theme is a revolting story 
of wifely infidelity and assassination, very similar to 
those treated in " Arden of Feversham" and "A Warn- 
ing for Fair Women." ^ 

The Black Dog of Newgate was a widely infamous 
character, one Luke Hutton, — son, it has been said, or 
cousin, of the Archbishop of York. Executed in 1598 
for repeated highway robberies and for other crimes, 
he impressed himself upon the public mind by his 
"Lamentation," of which a very doubtful version is 
preserved among the Roxhurghe Ballads; (vol. ii, ff 

* A ballad and a prose tract dealing with the Plymouth murder 
have survived. See an article on "The Story of Page of Plymouth " 
in The Shakespeare Society's Papers, vol. ii, 18-45. 



DRAMA OF CONTEMPORARY INCIDENT 355 

318, 319): "Luke Huttons Lamentation, which he 
wrote the day before his Death, being condemned to 
be hang'd at York, for his robberies and trespasses 
committed thereabouts. To the Tune of wandering 
and wavering." ^ 

Four typical murder plays remain intact: "Arden 
of Feversham" and "A Warning for Fair Women," 
powerful anonymous dramas both of which have been 
ascribed to Shakespeare, though in the latter case upon 
entirely negligible grounds; "A Yorkshire Tragedy," 
of which the earliest edition bears on its title-page the 
bold assertion, "Written by W. Shakespeare"; and 
the very curious work called "Two Tragedies in One," 
which claims for its author an elusive Robert Yaring- 
ton. 

The earliest of these plays is "Arden of Feversham," 
the greatest tragedy of the group, which was licensed 
April 3, 1592, and printed in the same year with an 
amply descriptive title-page: "The Lamentable and 

^ The ballad commences: — * 

" I am a poor Prisoner condemned to die 

ah wo is me, wo is me, for my great folly. 

Fast fettered in Irons in place where I lye 

be warned young wantons, hemp pasaeth green holly. 

My parents were of good degree 

By whom I would not ruled Im; 

Lord Jeaus receive me, with mercy relieve me. 
Receive, O sweet Saviour, my Spirit unto thee." 

There are twenty-two such stanzas, and two pictures in the original 
broadside in the British Museum. See also the "woeful Ballad 
made by Mr. George Mannynton an houre before he suffered at 
Cambridge-castell," entered on the Stationers' Register, Nov. 7, 
1576, and parodied in the "Repentance" of Quicksilver in "East- 
ward Iloe." 



866 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

True Tragedie of M. Arden of Feversham in Kent. 

W\\o was most wickcdlyo inurdrrod, by the meancs of 
his disloyall and Nvaulou wyfo, ^Yho for the lone she 
bare to one Mosbie, hyrcd two desperat ruffins Bhick- 
will and Shakbajj;, to kill hinu Wherin is shewed the 
great niallice and diseinmlation of a wicked woninian, 
the vnsatiable desire of filthie hist and the shaniefuU 
end of all nuirderers." The crime portrayed occurred 
in 1551, more than a generation before the play can 
have been composed, but all the circumstances were 
still fresh in the pei>ple's memory. Ilolinshed, whoso 
narrative the tlramatist follows, pauses in his Chron- 
icle to devote six great folio pages, double columnetl 
and closely printed, to the atrocity. The plot of the 
play does not unfold itself according to dramatic rules; 
j'et it holds the attention notwithstanding. The first 
four acts are taken up with successive attempts upon 
the life of the unsuspecting Arden, who escapes always 
by some unlooked for accident, till finally stabbed in 
his own house at the beginning of Act V. The rest of 
the last ai't pictures the discovery and condemnation 
of the nuirderers. l^pon this luipromising framework, 
the author of "Arden of Feversham" has built up a 
tragedy of coarse but mighty passion, which several 
distinguisheil critics have believed Shakespearean, 
but which there is better reason now for supposing to 
be the latest and finest work of Kyd.' The play con- 
tains several splendid declamatory speeches, three or 
fo\ir fine scenes of ilialoguc and action, and a rude 
colossal figure in Arden's wife, which, though some- 
times unpardonably vulgar and altogether without the 

^ Stv Charlos Oawfonl. Shaki-.tpron' Jahrhuch. xxxix (1903), 
liSa. Ropriuteil. Collirtatifa, 1st Series (IDtK)). 101 ff. 



DRAMA OF CONTEMPOIIARY INCIDENT 357 

touch f>f romant if pathos inherent in the evil charac- 
ters of great ideal poets, yet shows itself the work of a 
vigorous hand. 

The second of the extant murder tragedies was 
printed in 1509 as lately aeted by the Lord Charnljer- 
lain's (Shakespeare 'sj Company, and with the follow- 
ing title: "A Warning for Faire Women, containing 
The most Tragicall and Lamentable Murther of Mas- 
ter George Sand(,Ts, of London, Marchant, nigh Shoot- 
ers Hill; consented vnto by his owne wife, acted by 
M. Browne, Mistris Drewry and Trusty Roger, agents 
therin: with their seuerall ends." The murder of 
George Sanders took place in 1573, and in the same 
year there appeared a circumstantial account of the 
whole matter in a pamphlet of some twenty pages, 
followed by Stow and Ilolinshed as well as by the 
author of the play.^ Another mention of the crime 
occurs in Munday's " View of Sundry Examples," from 
which an illustrative quotation may be pardoned, be- 
cause, to my mind, it indicates how murder stories 
established themselves in the imagination of the peofjle 
and gained a permanent foothold in literature. The 

* The pamphlet ia reprinted in Simpson's School of Shakspere, 
vol. ii. Th'Tc can l>e no doubt that the play is baaed directly upon 
the pamphlet, and not upon the ehrcjnieh^s. Note, for example, the 
following parallel. After the arrest of the per.s<^jn3 suspected of 
complicity in Sanders's dfjalh, Mi.strcs.s Drury tells Mistress Sanders, 
according to the pamphlet, "that . . . she was fully determined 
not to dissemble any longer, nor to hazarde hir owne soule eternally 
for the safetie of another bodies temporal! life." The author of the 
play merely versifies, and writes (II. 1.571-1573): — 

"Should I, to purchase safety for another. 
Or lengthen out another's temporall life. 
Hazard mine owne soule everlastingly ?" 



358 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

original pamphlet and the chronicles give merely the 
facts as they occurred, plus a certain amount of moral- 
izing. Munday hardly cites any facts at all, — appar- 
ently the story was already well known, — but he uses 
the circumstance of Browne's crime and punishment 
as a point of departure for a vast quantity of euphu- 
istic fine writing. The murder, that is to say, had risen 
out of the plane of current journalism into that of 
belles-lettres. Munday writes: — 

"Not long since, one George Browne, a man of stat- 
ure goodly and excellent, if lyfe and deedes thereto 
had beene equivalent; but as the auncient adage is, 
goodly is he that goodly dooth, and comely is he that 
behaveth himself comely, so may it be witnessed in 
this man, who more respected a vaine pride and prodi- 
gall pleasure, which remayned in his person, then com- 
mendation and good report that foUoweth a godly 
and vertuous life. But nowe a dayes cverie courageous 
cutter, euerie Sim Swashbuckler, and everie desperate 
Dick, that can stand to his tackling lustely, and be- 
have him selfe so quarrelously that he is ashamed of all 
good and honest company, he is a gallant fellowe, a 
goodly man of his handes, and one, I promise you, that 
as soone comes to Tyburne as euer a one of them all. 
. . . But he [Browne] a wretch, more desirous of his 
death then wylling his welfare, more mindfull of raur- 
ther then savegard of his soule, so bent to blindnesse, 
that he expected not the light, strooke the stroke that 
returned his shame, dyd the deede that drove him to 
destiny, and fulfilled the fact, that in the end he found 
folly. O, minde most monstrous! O, heart most hard! 
O, intent so yrksome! whome neyther preferment 
might perswade, rytches move to regard, affection 



DRAMA OF CONTEMPORARY INCIDENT 359 

cause to respect, former freendship force to fancie, nor 
no vertue of the minde seeme too satisfie. Where was 
the bonds of loyaltie ? where was the regard of hon- 
estie ? Where was the feare of the Almightie ? where 
was the care of Christianitie ? or where was the hope of 
eternall fehcitie ? and last, where was thy duty to God, 
thy Prince, and countrey ? " 

The most striking difference between "Arden of 
Feversham" and the "Warning for Fair Women" lies 
in the greater comprehensiveness of tlie latter play. 
"Arden" begins abruptly with the immediate prepara- 
tion for the catastrophe, and nothing is treated in de- 
tail except the repeated attempts upon the hero's life 
and his accidental escapes. The other drama presents 
the whole story from the first meeting of Browne and 
Mistress Sanders through the formation and execu- 
tion of the plot to the final, disco very, trial, and con- 
demnation of all the guilty parties. The finest por- 
tions of "A Warning for Fair Women" are those which 
depict the remorse of the culprits after the murder has 
been committed. Browne's sudden terror as he hears 
the dying words of Sanders is well portrayed; and the 
most impressive scene of the play is certainly that in 
which Browne comes red-handed to meet his accom- 
plice, the dead man's wife. The bold interposition of 
Sanders's young son and his childish games in the 
midst of the bitter recriminations of the murderers 
shows a keen sense of the dramatic and no small know- 
ledge of human nature. 

The author of "A Warning for Fair Women," like 
the author of "Arden of Feversham," saw clearly the 
great fault of this kind of drama, — the small oppor- 
tunity, namely, in such chronicles of particular inci- 



;?G0 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

dents for the representation of broader and more uni- 
versal feelings. • The last lines of the '*^Yarning" voice 
an appeal to the audience to 

" lU-aro with tliis truo ami hoini'-hDrno Tragedy, 
Yeeliling so slondor jirjiiiinont iiml scope 
To build II nmttor of iinportiiiuv on. 
And in such forme, as, happly, you oxi)0(.'tod. 
What now hath fail'd lo-morruw you shall see 
Perform'd by History or Comedy." 

"Arden of Feversham" ends in the same strain: — 

" Contlonion. wo hope youle pardon this naked Tragedy, 
^Vherin no tileil points art" foisted iu 
To make it gratious to the oare or eye; 
For simple truth is gratious enough, 
And needes no other points of glosing stufife." 

There is more in this than the usual mock-modesty 
of the epilogue. The effort to visualize the sordid de- 
tails of oouteniporary crime must of necessity clip the 
wings of Tragedy. "Arden" and the "Warning for 
Fair Women" are faithful dramatizations of specific 
atrocities, never rising for more than a few sptHvhes 
into the rarefied universal atmosphere which surrounds 
the whole of Shakespeare's murder plays, "INlacbeth" 
and "Othello"; and this fact is perhaps the one abso- 
lute, incontrovertible proof that Shakespeare can have 
had no important part in the composition of either. 
In these two plays, however, the inevitable faults of 
their class are palliated by the truth and brilliance of 
individual scenes. 

1 The prefatory dialogue in the Warning for Fair Women and tlie 
epistle prefixed to George NVhetstone's Promos and Cassandra (1578) 
are probably the most important pieees of dramatic criticism to be 
found iu any English stage play previous to IGIK). 



DRAMA OF CONTEMPORARY INCIDENT 301 

The composition of murder tragedies appears to 
have been very largely instrumental in teaching the 
Elizabethan playwrights the dramatic capabilities of 
the life about theui. IJoth the works I have discussed 
abound in topical allusions giving to many of their 
scenes a delightful savor of sixteenth-century Eng- 
land, and bearing witness at the same time to the rise 
of that trend of realistic self-absorj>tion which reached 
a head about 1010, and which makes many of the 
Jacobean j>lays starve the romantic reader to glut the 
antiquary. In one of the dramas before us we see 
Arden and his friend Franklin go off to take a turn or 
two in Paul's before supping at the eighteen-penny 
ordinary. We see the stalls before the church and the 
apprentices in charge, and learn of the "ould filching" 
which is likely to occur "when the presse comes foorth 
of Paules." ' We hear of Gadshill robberies and devices 
for cutting purses; and before the play ends we find 
ourselves intimately acquainted with the manner of 
life of the cut-throats. Black Will and Shakebag. The 
domestic economy of Arden's household in town and 
country is very fully pictured; and this is one of the 
few plays in which gentlemen exchange convincingly 
the small gossip of the week or trivial dinner invita- 
tions. In "A Warning for Fair Women," the Queen's 
court at Greenwich is repeatedly mentioned, and one 
scene offers a charming glimpse of the courtiers drink- 
ing in the buttery, where ale is disper^sed as bounty 
to all cromers. The dark side of the life of the day is por- 
trayed with equal sincerity by the peasant. Old John, 
when he discovers Sanders's body: "What an age live 
we in ! when men have no mercy of men more than of 
* Cf. Arden of Fevemham, 11, ii, 53, 64. 



so-? THE Tunou drama 

tloj^gos. bloiuHcr than boasts! This is the deed of some 
swnjx^oriui::. swearing, drunken, tlesperate Dieke. CnW 
\\c thorn Cahhaloors ? masse, they he C\innihalles, that 
have the stabbe rtNidyer in their handes than a penny 
in their pnrse. Sliames death be their share." 

The eurioHs work eahed *"lVo LanientabU^ Trage- 
dies," or "Two Tragedies in One," was pubhshed in 
1601 with the name of Robert Yarington on the title- 
page. As the heading imphes, this proihietion con- 
sists of two separate pUits not in any way connected, 
except that a scene of the one alternates ordinarily 
with a scene of the other. The more poetical division 
of the work concerns an Italian version of the Habes 
in tlie Wood story, and has Ihhmi conjecturally re- 
gardcil as standing in son\e relation ti> (Miettle's non- 
extant "Orphans' Tragcily." for which Tlenslowe 
made several payments in 1,')!>5). Tiic other part, 
which more ilirtvlly concerns the present siibjiH't, 
dramatizes the nmnler. in .\iig\ist, 1;>1U. of Robert 
RiHvh, a lA>mU>n merchant, and his apprentice, 
Thomas Winchester, by an avaricious neighbor 
named Merrey. It is usual to conuiH't this pt>rtion of 
the work in some sort with an anonymous " Hiwhes 
Tragedy," licei\sed for acting in .Tamuiry, lUOO, and 
with the "tragcily of ISlerie" mentioned by llenslowe 
about the same time as by Day ami llaughton. Of 
Robert Yarington, tiic proclaimed author, notliing 
whatever is known. 

As preserveil. this motley play is far the worst of the 
extant nnirder trageilies. and it constitutes a glaring 
example of the disaster which follows the elTort to 
lUvk out coarse realistic n\aterial in a style of false and 
pretentious retinemenl. In agrtHMuent with the more 



DRAMA OF (X)NTEMr()RARY INCIDENT 8(53 

modcrntc prnctico of "A Wariiiiij^f lor Fair Woukmi," 
the "writer imbeds his doiihle |)h)t in n eoinj)lex nlle- 
gorical fninunvork afler tlie aichaic maimer of Kyd's 
"Solimaii and l*erse(hi," thus addiii^^ a third iiicoii- 
gruous element to his i)iece in a series of dichulic dia- 
logues between Homicide, Avarice, and Truth. Yar- 
ingtt)n's style tends everywhere toward ridiculous 
inflation; and it would perhaps not be easy to find 
a ha])])ier instance of misapplied and self-convicted 
})omposily than the words with which a niMghbor greets 
the recovery of the head and legs of the dismembered 
Beech : — 

" Tlicy lire tlic mime; alas, wlial, is Im'coiho 
Of the roinuiiuitT of lliis vvn-lclicd man ? " 

With this afTectation in language is strongly con- 
trasted the excessive crudity of the play in all matters 
of dramatic arrangement. Several of the stage direc- 
tions are of high value in marking the limits of nalfvet6 
tolerated in i^li/abclhan realistic presentation. Thus, 
we read: "Then Merry nnist j)asse to Beeches shopj)e, 
who must sit in his shop and Winchester his boy stand 
by"; and later, "Then being in the upi)er Rome [room] 
Merry strikes hini in the head (ifteene times." In this 
scene, the sj)ectator is rcnpiired to conceive Merry 
lirst as in his own shoj). He nuist then imagine him 
going to visit his neighbor IJeecli, entering the hitter's 
shoj), bringing him back to his own house, taking him 
indoors and uj) to his garret, and beating his brains 
out, coram populo, with fifteen blows of a hammer. 

The last great crime of Shak(\si)eare's age which 
received theatrical attention, and the most widi^ly 
bruited, probably, of all, occurred in 1()()5. It is thu.s 
described in Slow's Chronicle: "Walter Callvcrly 



3Gt THE TUDOR DRAMA 

of Calverly in Yorkshire Esquier, murdred 2 of his 
young children, stabbed his wife into the bodie with 
full purpose to have nuirdred her, and instantly went 
from his house to have slaine his youngest child at 
nurse, but was prevented. For which fact at his triall in 
Yorke hee stood mute and was judged to be prest to 
death, according to which judgment he was executed 
at the castell of Yorke the 5th of August [1605]." 

llpon this ghastly atfair were founded two plays; 
"A Yorkshire Tragedy," published in 1608, and 
George AVilkins's ** Miseries of Enforced Marriage," 
which appeared in the previous year "as it is now 
playd by his Majesties Servants." The latter drama 
possesses an accidental interest as the only play 
known to have been written independently by the 
obscure person who, according to the usually received 
opinion,^ collaborated with Shakespeare in "Peri- 
cles." Though printed a year earlier than the "York- 
shire Tragedy," the other play was almost certainly 
composed later. The title-page of the first quarto tells 
us that the "Miseries" was even then (1607) being 
performed by the King's Men; and the imaginative 
liberties taken with the course of events and with the 
characters would indicate that the period of writing 
stood removed a couple of years from the bleak reality. 
"A Yorkshire Tragedy," on the other hand, bears every 
mark of hasty and nearly contemporaneous work. 
The author of the latter play would appear not to have 
known the names of the figures, and to have been 

' See, however, D. L. Thomas's argument against Wilkins's 
authorship of Pericles, Engl. Stud., 39 (1908). ^10-^39, where inter- 
esting evidence is offered in favor of ascribing the play to Shake- 
speare and Thomas Hcywood. 



DRAMA OF CONTEMPORARY INCIDENT 365 

acquainted with only the bare outline of the catas- 
trophe, while standinf^ far too near the facts to venture 
upon any such artistic elaboration as we find in the 
"Miseries." "^lie brief "Yorkshire Tragedy" is occu- 
pied almost solely with the murders themselves and 
their punishment, adding but casual glimpses of the 
Husband's first love affair, his family connection, and 
London prodigality. It is just these last points that the 
"Miseries of Enforced Marriage" dwells upon; and 
when taken together the two plays give a fairly com- 
prehensive view of the situation. 

Everything about the "Yorkshire Tragedy" points 
to the same hasty assortment of miscellaneous and ill- 
digested material which Yarington's "Two Tragedies 
in One" exemplifies. The first page of the original 
edition is headed: "All's One, or. One of the Foure 
Plaies in One, called A York-shire Tragedy, as it was 
Plaid by the Kings Maiesties Plaiers." The most rea- 
sonable inference from this passage is that three inde- 
pendent or vaguely connected sets of additions had 
been employed in order to fill out to the compass re- 
quired for stage purposes the brief impromptu treat- 
ment of the murder, which, as preserved, extends to 
something less than the average length of two acts. 
When it came, three years later, to printing, the ex- 
traneous matter was omitted. It is worth noting that 
the company which in 1607 was actually performing 
"The Miseries of Enforced Marriage" is the same 
which had performed the "Yorkshire Tragedy," — 
presumably in 1605, when interest in the Calverley 
murders was strongest. It is, therefore, very probable 
that the play of Wilkins represents a thorough literary 
adaptation of the original "Four Plays in One," de- 



866 THE Tl^DOR DILVMA 

signed to secure ooiitiniied currency for the work after 
the temporary a]>peal due to sensational curiosity had 
subsided. Wilkins may have retained in altered form 
some of the earlier matter in the "Four Plays"; but 
as he discarded the tragic conclusion, the original 
treatment of the murders would seem to have l>een 
left intact, to hnd separate publication just after the 
appearance of the improved text. 

In versification, in character delineation, and in the 
general absence of human sympathy. "A Yorkshire 
Trageily " is a work of the low dramatic level which the 
occasion and purpose of its composition would lead one 
to expect. The impudent claim of Shakespearean 
authorship must, along with several other instances 
of premeditated fraud, be laid heavily to the charge 
of its ill-reputed publisher. Thomas Pavier. Yet the 
play does contain three or four passages of prose strik- 
ingly superior to all the rest, and characterizetl by an 
imcauny play of fancy which recall the porter scene 
in "Macbeth" and the morbid brilliance of the sup- 
posedly Jonsonian additions to "The Spanish Trag- 
edy." These few speeches are perhaps not glaringly 
unworthy of Shakcspeiire, nor very different from 
what he might have written, had he stood by with the 
proverbial pcnful of ink. and chosen to give a mo- 
ment's attention to the miserable piece of sloppy 
sensationalism which his company were demeaning 
themselves to perform. To accept this possibility is 
merely to reduce the charge against Pavier from un- 
complicated mendacity to equivocation. 

Technically consiilercd, "The Miseries of Enforced 
Marriage" hardly belongs to the group of contempo- 
rary nuuder plays. AVilkins has altered the names of 



DRAMA OF CONTEMPORARY INCIDENT 367 

his characters, added many imaginary figures, and 
has substituted a happy conclusion for the revolting 
butchery of reality, by causing his intending murderer 
to repent at the latest possible moment. The connec- 
tion of this tragi-comedy with the Calverley affair, 
first pointed out by Mr, P. A. Daniel in 1879,^ is, how- 
ever, indisputable; and the play affords an excellent 
instance of the tendency, everywhere manifesting itself 
at the beginning of the seventeenth century, to pass 
from the rude dramatization of specific contemporary 
events to the imaginative portrayal of general real- 
istic conditions. Here one can see the writer actually 
in process of bridging the gap between unpolished 
works of concrete incident, like "Arden of Fever- 
sham," and those great critical analyses of current 
manners of which Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair" is 
possibly the most masterly example. The considera- 
tion of "The Miseries of Enforced Marriage" belong.s, 
therefore, hardly less to the next chapter than to the 
present. Quite mediocre in the essentials of plot and 
poetic finish, this piece yields to few Jacobean plays in 
the life-likeness of its characters. Nearly all the dra- 
matis persona; come direct from the streets and tav- 
erns of contemporary London, and the comedy of the 
time pos.sesses few more successful type-portraits than 
those of the shrewd and honest old family servant 
Butler, and the gentleman-gamester Ilford. 

Thomas Heywood's "Woman Killed with Kind- 
ness," written in 1G03, illustrates in a different manner 
the tendency to employ material proper to the murder 
play for the purposes of more catholic art. Uf> to the 
middle of Act IV, the relations between Frankford, 
1 Athenoeum, Oct. 4, \o. 2710. 



868 THE TUDOR DILVMA 

INIistress Frankford, and Wendoll nin parallel to the 
state of all'airs in "Arden of Feversliam" and "A 
Warning for Fair Women." The admirable picture, 
moreover, of the management of INIaster Frankford's 
household repeats the most characteristic merit of the 
latter plays. But Ileywood had too much both of the 
moralist and the artist to give his drama the hideous 
termination ^vhich the earlier poets had taken over 
from the history' of crime. The situation, which in the 
muriler plays led to the cold-blooded assassination of 
the injured husband, is made by Heywood to result 
in the exposure and remorseful anguish of the evil- 
doers. The portrayal of i\[istress Frankford's feelings 
and fate from the time of her wearied acquiescence in 
the sin which she has come to loath (IV, iii, ad fin.) is a 
triumph of imaginative art. Yet the imagination of the 
poet clearly takes its flight from the basis of realistic 
sympathy which the murder plays had created. How 
nuich Ileywood owes in this i)art of the play to his 
humbler predecessors in the same theme becomes evi- 
dent when we contrast the scenes dealing with Mis- 
tress Frankford with the shallow and insincere under- 
plot of Acton and INIountford. 

"The Miseries of Enforced Marriage" and "A 
Woman Killed with Kindness" thus make it clear that 
the class of murder tragedies, however transitory in 
itself, yet left the English theatre a legacy, both in 
comedy and in tragedy, which was permanent. The 
glaring atrocities, which first drew the eyes of the ruder 
playwrights to the life about them, soon lost their 
zest; but in the meantime their study had enriched the 
drama with several new trends of sympathy and 
observation. 



DRAMA OF CONTEMPORARY INCIDENT 3G9 

It is by no means to be supposed that the murder 
plays constitute the sole evidence of the tendency of 
the Elizabethan popular sta^e, about the close of the 
century, to treat matters of local and current rather 
than universal application. The plays we have dis- 
cussed make up the most readily distinguished and 
probably the best preserved group of dramas based on 
contemporary incident; but any comparison of the- 
atrical and social history between 1580 and 1610 shows 
the drama of the age permeated everywhere by tangled 
threads of topical allusion, now unfortunately only 
partially and doubtfully explainable. It is, indeed, 
unsafe and uncritical to regard every average play of 
the epoch as a definite historical document, and to 
seek, as many have sought, to trace each one back to 
some particular occurrence of the time.^ Yet no stu- 
dent can afford to overlook the logical connection be- 
tween the ephemeral interests of the Elizabethan pub- 
lic and the work of those playwrights whose function 
it was to be the public's entertainers in ordinary. 
From the time of "Gorboduc" and "Gammer Gur- 
ton's Needle" onward, the evolution of the drama 
was very largely a matter of the origin, development, 
and absorfjtion of theatrical fashions, each closely 
interpretative of some phase of the general popular 
life. "Gorboduc" itself is an "occasional" play, com- 
posed in view of a particular political situation, 
and intended to stimulate the Queen to speedy 
care of the royal succession. So, the court comedies 
of Lyly are nearly all in some degree parables 
of fashionable history, and depend for their elucida- 

^ The most notable exponents of this dangerous tendency in criti- 
cism are Richard Simpson and the late Mr. Fleay. 



870 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

tion upoti the proper understanding of momentary 
conditions. 

I'nder normal oiremnstances. it is trne. particularly 
on the public stage, the plays possessing tiie elements 
of permanent success were those in which local apjH\^l 
was almost entirely obliterated in a higher and more 
catholic view of art. Yet even in these works the pul- 
sation of current thought and gossip can often be felt; 
and any great public excitement was likely in this age 
to obtain inunciliate and undisguised expression ou 
the popular stage. Besides the constant tendency of 
the theatres to keep pace with the vulgar curiosity con- 
cerning spectacular crime and the great tlare of na- 
tional ardor which the Armada year produeeil, two 
great controversies of the day extendtxi themselves 
to the drama and became important factors in the- 
atrical history. The one was the famous Martin 
Mivrprelate dispute of loSS-loOO; the other the "*^Yar 
of the Theatres," which culminated about the year 
IGOO. 

None of the dramatic texts called forth by the Mivr- 
prelate agitation have sun'ived. The prx^bability is 
that they were all coarse impn^mptus which trusted 
for their etfei't rather to farcical action juid clownish 
caricature than to any regularly developed plot. As 
might naturally Iv assumed, it appears to have Ihhmi 
exclusively the anti-Martinist, Episcopal party, which 
handleil this un-Puritanical weapon of stage satire. 
The controversy itself broke out in loSS, but the first 
suggestion of its transference to the theatres txvurs 
in Nashe's "Countercuff Given to Martin Junior" 
(August. l')SO\ where allusion is made to "The Anato- 
mic latelie taken of him, the blood and the humors that 



DRAMA OF CONTEMPORARY INCIDENT 371 

were taken from him, by launcing and worming him at 
London vpon the common stage." ^ 

In regard to the mode of treatment, we have only 
a few hints of burlesque scenes, such as one in which 
" Vetus Comoedia" brought in the lady Divinity with 
her face scratched and her stomach nauseated by the 
lawless attacks of Martin.^ The controversial im- 
portance attached to these works is indicated by the 
apparent necessity of legal interference,^ and by 
Lyly's fervent ejaculation in the anti-Martinist tract, 
" Pap with a Hatchet " : " Would those Comedies might 
be allowed to be plaid that are pend, and then I am 
sure he [Martin] would be decyphered, and so perhaps 
discouraged."^ 

The militant tendencies of the English stage be- 
tween 1588 and 1591 were not exclusively employed 
in religious or political controversy. That personal 
satire was also rampant appears from a famous sen- 
tence in Greene's preface to "Perimedes the Black- 
smith" (1588): "I keepe my old course, to palter vp 
some thing in Prose, vsing mine old poesie still, Omne 
tulit punctum, although latelye two Gentlemen Poets 
made two madmen of Rome beate it out of their paper 
bucklers; and had it in derision, for that I could not 
make my verses iet vpon the stage in tragicall bus- 
kins." And then, after several ill-natured innuendoes 
against Marlowe and another poet, Greene returns to 

1 Cf. Nashe's Works, ed. R. B. McKerrow, i, 59. 

* Pasquil's Return, Nashe, ed. McKerrow, i, 92. 

» See Collier, ed. 1879, i, 264, for the text of the Lord Mayor's 
letter of November, 1589, relative to the suppression of all plays in 
the city by reason of the "mislike" of the Master of the Revels. 

* Cf. Lyly's Works, ed. Bond, iii, 408. 



372 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

his special cause of anger: "If I speake darkely, Gen- 
tlemen, and offend with this digression, I craue par- 
don, in that I but answere in print what they haue 
offered on the Stage." ^ 

The so-called "War of the Theatres," or "Poeto- 
machia," as Dekker terms it, arose just ten years later 
than the Marprelate discussion. This second con- 
troversy has left far more important dramatic evi- 
dences than the other, though it is probable that it 
bulked much the smaller in the eyes of the contem- 
porary public. The limits of this theatrical war, 
which involved Ben Jonson and certain rival poets by 
him denominated "Poetasters," have been unjustifi- 
ably extended by Fleay and his followers. All state- 
ments about the affair need careful weighing. 

The permanently important results of the war were 
the production in very close succession, about the 
middle of the year 1601, of two great plays: Jonson's 
"Poetaster" and Dekker's "Satiromastix." These 
comedies were acted in confessed rivalry by rival com- 
panies, — Jonson's by the Children of her Majesty's 
Chapel, by whom his previous play of "Cynthia's 
Revels" had been presented; Dekker's by Shake- 
speare's company and by the Children of Paul's. In 
each case the sole or main object was personal satire. 
"The Poetaster" closes with a distinct expression of 
Jonson's determination not to proceed in the con- 
troversy;^ and there is in fact no reason to believe that 

1 Greene's Works, ed. Grosart, vii, 7, 8. 

2 See the Apologetical Dialogue spoken "only once" as an epi- 
logue on the first production of the play {Mermaid ed., 375 S). 
This dialogue was omitted from the 1602 edition because of legal 
restraint, but was restored in the 1C16 Folio. 



DRAMA OF CONTEMPORARY INCIDENT 373 

the quarrel was continued after 1601, otherwise than 
in a few vague allusions. 

The earlier history of the dispute is not so clear. 
Yet it seems possible to reach the truth in all essen- 
tials, if we are wilUng to abandon pure speculation and 
accept at their face value the statements of the two 
main combatants, both of whom appear to be per- 
fectly sincere. Jonson asserts, in the Apologetical 
Dialogue aflSxed to "The Poetaster," that his oppo- 
nents had provoked him for three years "with their 
petulant styles On every stage," till "at last unwilling. 
But weary, I confess, of so much trouble," he resolved 
to "try if shame could win upon 'hem." He thus sug- 
gests that "The Poetaster" was his first, as well as his 
last, effort at satire against individuals. 

Dekker, on the other hand, says, in the Preface to 
"Satiromastix," that Jonson, or Horace, "question- 
less made himself believe that his Burgonian wit might 
desperately challenge all comers, and that none durst 
take up the foils against him"; and he adds that if 
"an Inquisition should be taken touching this lamen- 
table merry murdering of Innocent Poetry," the verdict 
"would be found on the Poetasters' side Sedefendendo" 
though, as he admits, "Notwithstanding, the Doctors 
think otherwise." 

It is easy to reconcile the two statements. Jonson 
was doubtless quite justified in stating " The Poetaster " 
to be his first overt attack upon his fellow dramatists. 
With the exception of the skit on Anthony Munday as 
Antonio Balladino in the first scene of "The Case is 
Altered" — an incidental bit of ridicule apparently 
unconnected with the question in hand — I do not 
believe that any of Jonson's comedies previous to 



S7t THE TITDOR DRA^IA 

"The Poetaster" contained satirical matter which a 
contemporary aiuiienoe would have applied to any 
active dramatist of the day. 

The attempt to explain various figures in "Every 
Man in his Humor." "Every Man out of his Humor," 
and "Cynthia's Revels" iis distinct travesties of 
Daniel, Munday, Marston. Dekker, and other poets, 
though very variously maintained, leads only to con- 
flicting results, and seems to me inlierently uncritical. 
Jonson's satire is direct and bold. In \'iew of the ex- 
quisite cleverness and clearness of his caricatures of 
Munday in "The Case is Altereil" and of Marston and 
Dekker in "The Poetaster," it is inconceivable that he 
coidd be guilty of the vague and pointless gibes which 
Fleay ivud Peuuimau attempt to tiud in the three other 
plays. 

Moreover, each of these three plays just alluded to 
has a purpose entirely distinct from the ridicule of 
individuals; and the various characters introduceil are 
all delineated in accordance with this general purpose. 
"Every Man in his Humor." a comedy of light in- 
trigue and social types, requires its "town gull," Mas- 
ter Matthew, for the sake of atmosphere, just as it 
requires Captain Bobadill. the "Paul's Man"; and no 
trait in either figure can justly be credited to any other 
source than the artistic denuinds of the imaginary plot.^ 

"Every Man out of his Humor" has. of course, a 
definitely satiric aim, but the mark of Jonson's ridi- 

* Thoiv iipjvars to lie no support for the idea of Flo.iy and Ponnl- 
man that the p^K-t Daniel is satirize*.! as Master Matthew and Fas- 
tidious Brisk in Jonson's Erery Man phiys and as Emulo in PiitiaU 
GriggtH. For a diseussion of the latter work (by Dekker, Chettle, 
and Haughton) and its slight jHVJsible connection with the theatrical 
war, see the next chapter, p. 409 f. 



DRAMA OF CONTEMPORARY INCIDENT 375 

cule is here never the single individual. Rather, the 
spectators are promised in the Prologue 

" a mirror. 
Where they shall see the time's deformity 
Anatomized in every nerve and sinew." J 

This promise is faitlil'ully k(!pt. By means of such 
varied ty{)e figures as Sordido, Fungoso, Deliro, Carlo 
Buffone, and P^astidious Brisk, Jonson holds up to 
reprehension the follies of all contemporary life, 
whether in country, city, or court. That he should 
have been willing, in the midst of so gigantic a task, 
to divert his attention and that of his audience to the 
gibbeting of the frailties of a series of small [)oets of 
his time is not j)robable, and is nowhere really sug- 
gested by the text.^ 

"Cynthia's Revels" has a narrower scope than 
"Every Man out of his Humor" in as much as it 
restricts its satire practically to courtly tyj)es alone. 
Thus, general embodiments of fashionable absurdity 
in the earlier play, like Saviolina, Fastidious, and Sir 
Puntarvolo, become the progenitors of a great number 
of more subtly differentiated figures in the later work. 
In these narrow subdivisions of the genus "courtier," 

* The only serious indication of personal satire in Every Man out 
of his Humor is found in the circumstance that Clove, a minor fig- 
ure in III, i, employs for comic effect a number of turgid Marstonian 
words. There is no doubt that Jonson had Marston's stylistic excesses 
in mind when he wrote the passage; but the theory that Clove is on 
that account to be regarded as a personal caricature of Marston is 
quite untenable. The very same passage also puts into Clove's mouth 
a parody of two high-sounding lines of Julius Casar (III, ii, 110, 111); 
whence we should have to assume a second personal identification 
between Clove and Shakespeare. 



376 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

with which " Cynthia's Revels " mainly concerns itself, 
individual traits and failings naturally play a some- 
what larger part, and Jonson doubtless relies rather 
more than in "Every Man out of his Humor" upon 
his observation of actual persons. It may be barely 
possible, for instance, that he gives to Hedon and 
Anaides unfavorable peculiarities which he had noted 
among his fellow poets. But he is far likelier to have 
foimd the prototypes of these figures in the aristo- 
cratic circle to which they both belong. The circum- 
stances of composition of "Cynthia's Revels" seem 
in themselves to negative the idea that the play is in 
any sense the outgrowth of a literary quarrel. Jonson's 
purpose, frankly expressed, is the Lylian one of securing 
court patronage for himself by means of a Lylian alle- 
gory in eulogy of Elizabeth. Such a drama, written 
of the court and for the court, and with the object of 
portraying the unapproachable merits of the author, 
would surely be no fit place for expatiating on plebeian 
professional squabbles or indulging in undignified 
bickerings with two poets admittedly Jonson's inferiors 
in the judgment of the time.^ 

' I am not forgetful of the arguments of Fleay and Penniman in 
favor of an intricate satirical allegory in Cynthia's Rnrh. Even 
saner critics like Small accept on the whole the identification of 
Hedon and Anaides with Crispinus and Demetrius in The Podaster, 
and hence with Marston and Dekker respectively. The only solid 
reason, however, for this is the fact that Dekker makes Horace 
(Jonson) repeat in Satiroinasiix, with reference to Crispinus and 
Demetrius, words which Criticus had used of Hedon and Anaides in 
Cynthia's Rarls : — 

" \NTiy should I care what euery Dor doth buz 
In credulous ears ? It is a crowne to me; 
That the best iudgemeuts can report me wrong'd. 



DRAMA OF CONTEMPORARY INCIDENT 377 

I believe, therefore, that Jonson did not openly 
express himself against his dramatic rivals before the 
appearance of "The Poetaster." Yet in another way 
he had undoubtedly caused irritation general enough 
to justify Dekker's plea of self-defence on the poetas- 
ters' side. In each of the trio of satirical comedies 
which begins with "Every Man out of his Humor," 
Jonson presents himself, in the persons of Asper, Criti- 
cus (Crites),^ and Horace respectively, as an insuflFer- 

I think but what they are, and am not moou'd: 
The one a light voluptuous Reueler, 
The other, a strange arrogating puffe. 
Both impudent, and arrogant enough." 

{Satiromastix, ed. Scherer, 11. 416-418, 420-423. 
Cf. Cynthia s Revels, 1602 version, ed. Bang, 
11. 1360-1362, 1376-1379.) 

From the comment of Asinius (1. 424), "S'lid, do not Criticus 
Reuel in these lynes ?" it seems clear that Dekker's purpose in quot- 
ing the passage is merely to ridicule the pompous egoism of Criti- 
cus-Horace-Jonson, and not at all to suggest the identity of the 
two pairs of characters about whom the words are spoken. In fact, 
Hedon and Anaides do not resemble Marston and Dekker either as 
the latter actually were, or as Jonson caricatured them in The 
Poetaster. The former are extravagant and feeble-minded gallants 
of the court, whose offence against Criticus consists not in literary 
rivalry, but in the spreading of calumnious reports. Only prepos- 
session in favor of a theory could well suggest a connection between 
these symbolic representatives of fashionable dissipation (Hedon = 
Self-indulgence; Anaides =; Shamelessness) and the beggarly hacks, 
Crispinus and Demetrius, of The Poetaster. That Dekker himself 
did not expect the identiBcation to be pressed is obvious from the 
contradiction between the quoted description of .\naides, "a strange 
arrogating puffe," and Horace's sketch of Demetrius only eight 
lines above as " the slightest cob-web-lawne peece of a Poet " {Satiro- 
mastix. 1. 415). 

^ The representative of Jonson in Cynthia's Revels is called Criti- 



378 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

able pattern of j)erfection. Though he seems in the 
two earhcr plays of the group to be hunting larger 
game than Marston and Dekkcr, and to be contrast- 
ing his virtues with the defects of a much broader world 
than that of the current stage; yet there can be no 
doubt that his general arrogance had made him from 
the first a butt for the resentful sarcasm of several 
writers to whom Jonson could honestly claim to have 
given little direct offence.^ 

Jonson's excuse for "The Poetaster" was that he 
had been provoked on every stage for three years; i. e., 
from about 1508. It is regularly accepted that the 
original })rovocation came from John Marston, and 
it is usual to exj)lain as referring to this circumstance 
Jonson's later statement to Drummond of Hawthorn- 
den that he had beaten Marston and taken his pistol 
from him, because the latter had represented him on 
the stage. 

In the search for a work which might thus have 
incensed Jonson, two plays of doubtful Mars Ionian 
authorship have been found. "Ilistriomastix," a 
dull allegorical drama, which Marston probably re- 
vised about 1598, certainly involves a satire, as yet 
insufficiently explained, in connection with the public 
stage of the time. This play is, furthermore, given the 
ominous distinction of special mention by name in the 

cus in the first edition of thf play (1602) and in the allusions of 
Satiromastix. In the Jonson Folio of 1C16, and consequently in most 
subsequent editions, the name is altered to Crites. 

* This seems to be the fair interpretation of the dialogue be- 
tween Horace, Crispinus, and Demetrius in Saiiromantix (11. 436 ff), 
though Dekker naturally overstresses the insincerity anil malice of 
Horace. 



DRAMA OF CONTEMPORARY INCIDENT 379 

sarcastic passage in "Every Man out of his Humor" 
most fre(juently quoted in relation to this subject.' 
It is easy to make out a resemblance between Jonson 
and the revised (Marstonian ?) figure of Chrysoganus 
in "Ilistriomastix"; but Chrysoganus is presented in 
what seems to tlie modern reader a favorable light. 
On the whole, one can hardly believe that Jonson was 
greatly angered by this portrait. It may, however, 
have led to a coolness between the two poets, and can 
quite reasonably have served Jonson as an ui)per 
limit when he came later to make a mental list of the 
stage attacks u[)on himself. 

A clearer case of spite on Marston's part is perhaps 
to be observed in "Jack Drum's liintertainment," 
printed in 1(501, and acted l)y the Children of Paul's, 
who later performed "Satiromastix." In the absence 
of definite proof of Marston's authorship of "Jack 
Drum," and in the failure of all unquestionable allu- 
sions to Jonson, the bearing of the play uj)on the 
quarrel is likely to remain matter of conjecture. It is 
certain, however, that the author goes out of his way 
to introduce into his main comedy of Pasquil and 
Katherine a laughable treatment of the deserved 
humiliation which befalls Brabant Senior, a pom])ous 
egoist of Jonsonian stamp.^ Though the matter is 
hardly susceptible of proof, it is not at all improbable 

' Sec the speech of Clove near the middle of III, i (Mermaid cd., 
178). 

* Fleay's identification of Jonson with the vicious Frenchman, 
John fo de King, in which he is followed, as usual, by Penniman, has 
nothing to recommend it. As regards the only situation in which 
any parallel has been suspectcfl, John fo de King is rcpnjsented not 
in a satirical light, but as having much the best of the affair. 



3S0 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

that this comedy precipitated both the violent cam- 
paign of satire which filled the year 1001, and also the 
personal chastisement with which Jousou \"isited 
Marstou. 

The often ill-advised attempt to trace the workings 
of personal malice in this quarrel has in many Ciises 
caused too little attention to be given to another 
aspect of the controversy; namely, that which pre- 
sents it as the outgrowth of corporate jealousy be- 
tween two competing theatres. "The Poetaster," as 
well as "Cynthia's Revels" and "The Case Is Al- 
tered," was presented by the Children of her Majesty's 
Chapel, to whom Jonson had transferred his ser^^ces 
from the Lord Chamberlain's Company after the pro- 
duction of "Every Man out of his Humor." "Satiro- 
mastix" was acte<.l by the Chamberlain's Company 
(Shakespeare's) and also by the Children of Paul's, 
who seem at this period to have had some atfiliatiou 
with the Chamberlain's Men. "Jack Drum's Enter- 
tainment" and probably "Ilistriomastix" were also 
performed by the Children of Paul's, like Marston's 
authentic early play of "Antonio and Mellida." 

Both "Satiromastix" and "The Poetaster" contain 
sarciistic allusions to the rival place of entertaimnent. 
The former play gibes twice at the Chapel Children's 
locale, the Blackfriars Theatre; and "The Pivtaster," 
performe*.! in the latter place, reciprt.x\\tes by satirizing 
Histrio's theatre (The GloW) on the other side of 
"T\-ber" (/. c, on the Pankside. opposite the city), 
where, instead of "Humors, Revels, and Satires," 
Tucea will tind in the plays Jis much ribaldry a^ he can 
desire, and where, Histrio assures him, "all the sinners 
i' the suburbs come and applaud our action daily." 



DRAMA OF CONTEMPOItVRY INCIDENT 381 

We do not know the cause of Jonson's alienation 
from the Chamberlain's Company about the begin- 
ning of 1600; but the change seems to have been 
accompanied with ill-feeling. It is noticeable that the 
direct attack upon Jonson began, according to all 
indications, at just this period; and it is certain that 
"The Poetaster" does not merely ridicule in Deme- 
trius (Dekker) and Crispinus (Marston) single writers 
in the employ of the possibly allied companies of the 
Globe and Paul's. In Histrio and in a number of ran- 
dom allusions the play attacks the Chamberlain's 
Company as a whole. 

The fact of definite hostility between the Globe 
Company and that of the Chapel Children is further 
proved by the famous allusions in the second act of 
"Hamlet."^ Rosencrantz's description of the "aery 
of children" certainly refers to the Children of the 
Chapel, and forms a natural retort to Jonson's ridicule 
of the Chamberlain's Company in "The Poetaster." 
According to Rosencrantz, these children, given, as 
Tucca expresses it, to "nothing but Humors, Revels, 
and Satires, that gird and fart at the time," are "little 
eyases, that cry out on the top of question [deal with 
matters of the most absolutely contemporary inter- 
est?] and are most tyrannically clapped for 't: these 
are now the fashion, and so berattle the common 
stages [so berate the adult companies ?] that many 
wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills [Jonsonian 
ridicule], and dare scarce come thither." 

There is no question, then, that sharp rivalry ex- 
isted in 1601 between the professional actors of the 
Globe and Fortune (Henslowe's theatre) and the boy 
1 Scene 2, 11. 336 ff. 



382 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

players of the Blaekfriars private theatre, who acted 
under the special patronage of the queen, and who, as 
all the allusions show, were certainly attracting to 
their expensive i)erforniances a specially large pro- 
j)ortion of the fashionable public. I do not believe, 
however, that sufficient evidence exists for Professor 
^Vallace's assumption that the popularity of IMack- 
friars was seriously endangering the prosperity of the 
Globe. ^ Coniniercially speaking, plays like "Cynthia's 
Revels" and "The Poet;ister" can hardly have been 
very formidable rivals to such notable successes as 
"Henry V," "Julius Ciesar," and "Ilaudet," even 
when we make the greatest possible allowance for the 
current topical interest of the former. The Black- 
friars Theatre also was relatively small, and appears 
to have been open only one night in the week.* 
Shakespeare's allusions to the success of the children, 
furlhcrmore, to their carrying away "Hercules and his 
load too," as well as to the "throwing about of brains" 
in the theatrical war and the nation's desire that the 
poet and the player should go " to cutfs in the ques- 
tion," are far from showing any sense of personal de- 
feat or bitterness. On the contrary, these allusions are 
the good-natured tribute of the assured master to 
amateur cleverness. Appearing in a play acted a few 
months probably after "Satiromastix," they indicate 
how serene Shakespeare had been left by the the- 
atrical dispute and all the personalities involved in it. 
Both in the first quarto (1008) and in the final 

» Cf. C. W. W:ill;uv. The Children of the Chapel ai Blackfriara, 
1597-1003. (.'haptiTs xiii ami xiv. 

' See the aoooimt in tho Duko of Stettin's diary (September, 
1604), quoted by Wallace, op. cit., p. 106. 



DRAMA OF CONTEMPORARY INCIDENT 383 

(Folio) version of "Hamlet," the company of adult 
players is represented as travelling to Elsinore be- 
cause the fantastic humors of the children have cap- 
tured the metropolis. This circumstance, indispen- 
sable to the plot of the drama, has, of course, in itself 
no necessary topical significance whatever. Yet it 
seems likely on other grounds that an actual tour of 
Shakespeare's company toward the end of 1601 is 
alluded to; and the fact of this journey makes it 
possible, I think, to bring the play of "Hamlet" into 
connection with the only piece of real evidence con- 
cerning the "War of the Theatres" hitherto unmen- 
tioned. 

It is probable that "The Poetaster," "Satiromas- 
tix," and "Hamlet" were all first produced in 1601, 
and in the order named. ^ Still later doubtless in the 
same year, during the Christmas season, the students 
of St. John's College, Cambridge, performed the sec- 
ond part of "The Return from Parnassus," the last 
member of a curious trilogy, partly realistic and partly 
allegorical in nature. In Act IV, scene 3, occurs one 
of the most important of all the contemporary allu- 

' It must be confessed that the precise date of Hamlet, whether 
1601 or 1602, is still somewhat doubtful. However, the entry of the 
play on the Stationers' Register, July 26, 1602, "as yt was latelie 
Acted by the Lord Chamberleyne his scrvantes" suggests that the 
first London run of the play was then over. Printers who could 
publish an edition of a play still current on the boards seldom failed 
to advertise that fact. Cf . title-page to Wilkins's Miseries of Enforced 
Marriage (1607), "As it is now playd by his Maiesties Seruants." 
I believe that the first acting of Hamlet can safely be pushed back 
to the autumn of 1601. It should be noted that the allusion to 
Christmas (L i, 158-165), sometimes taken as dating the play, has in 
both the quartos very much the appearance of a later interpolation. 



384 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

sions to Shakespeare. The words are placed in the 
mouth of the famous actor, WilHam Kemp: "Why 
here 's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down — 
ay, and Ben Jonson too. O that Ben Jonson is a pesti- 
lent fellow; he brought up Horace, giving the poets a 
pill; but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge 
that made him bewray his credit." 

This is the last significant reference to the War of the 
Theatres, and it has been variously explained. "Troi- 
lus and Cressida," as an obscure satirical comedy of 
the same approximate period, has been most fre- 
quently selected for the "purge" with which Shake- 
speare answered Jonson's "Poetaster." Upon sober 
consideration, however, it is hardly possible to find, 
either in the figure of Ajax or elsewhere in the play, 
any reliable indication of anti-Jonsonian purpose. 
Still less likely, I think, are the other alternatives : that 
Shakespeare wrote a lost play against Jonson; and that 
the author of the "Return from Parnassus," who 
shows a very glib knowledge of contemporary litera- 
ture, ascribed to Shakespeare the " Satiromastix " of 
Dekker. 

I do not know that the reference to the purge in this 
Cambridge play has been definitely associated hitherto 
with the fact that "Hamlet" was acted, as the title- 
page of the first quarto (1603) tells us, not only in 
London, but "also in the two Universities of Cam- 
bridge and Oxford, and elsewhere." ^ This announce- 

1 Professor E. B. Reed ("The College Element in Hamlet,*' Mod. 
Phil., vi. 1909) connects the two plays, assigning the priority to the 
Cambridge piece. Professor Boas {Cambridge Hi.story, VI, ch. xii) 
partially accepting Reed's theory, suggests Christmas, 1602 (N. S.), 
rather than 1601 as the date of the second part of The Return from 



DRAMA OF CONTEMPORARY INCIDENT 385 

ment, together, with the mention in the text itself 
of the travelhng of the players, seems to point to a 
tour of the Globe Company before the end of 1601. 
Now the allusion to the "Purge" in the "Return from 
Parnassus" is of such a nature as to make it almost 
certain that the audience fully understood the refer- 
ence. I believe that the passage was intended to recall 
some clearly expressed rebuke of Jonson in the text 
of "Hamlet" as recently acted in Cambridge. To be 
sure, as the latter play is preserved, it contains no dis- 
tinct anti-Jonsonian stroke; but that fact is easily 
explained. It should be remembered that the earliest 
(1603) version of "Hamlet" contains only an exces- 
sively abbreviated mention of the theatrical war; 
while the later quartos of 1604, etc., though certainly 
based on the true complete copy, purposely omit the 
twenty most significant lines concerning the "little 
eyases." The reason for the non-appearance of these 
lines in all editions except the 1623 Folio, is obviously 
the same as that which prevented Jonson from pub- 
lishing his Apologetical Dialogue to "The Poetaster" 
in the 1602 edition of that play; namely, the "Re- 
straint by Authority " of which Jonson expressly com- 
plains. 

When the collective editions of Jonson and Shake- 
speare were issued, in 1616 and 1623 respectively, there 
was no longer any necessity of suppressing general 
allusions to the long-past quarrel of the theatres. But 
there did exist the 'strongest reason why Shakespeare's 
editors should not have cared to give wanton offence 
to the most influential poet of the day, the generous 

Parnassus. On this last assumption the earlier date of Hamlet 
would be certain. 



386 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

supporter of their enterprise, by restoring excised and 
forgotten bits of personal ridicule. I believe, there- 
fore, that the purge which made Jonson bewray his 
credit, the blow with which Shakespeare closed the 
War of the Theatres, was to be found in "Hamlet" 
as that play was presented in Cambridge, London, and 
elsewhere, in 1601-1602. I believe that it lay in the 
power of Shakespeare's literary executors, Heming and 
Condell, to preserve this passage, as they preserved the 
general quizzing of the little eyases, in their authori- 
tative edition of the play. There can be no doubt, how- 
ever, that in leaving to oblivion such a piece of transi- 
tory satire, which, even though not very unfriendly, 
may have been very humiliating to Jonson, the editors 
would have been faithfully observing the wish of the 
dead poet and the obvious proprieties of the situation. 
In view of the magnijBcent eulogy which Jonson was 
even at the moment contributing to their edition, the 
raking up of animosities of twenty years' standing 
would have been nothing short of unpardonable. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 
GENERAL CRITICISM 

A. THE MARPRELATE CONTROVERSY 

Arber, HdvraTd : "Introductory Sketch to the Martin Marpre- 
late Controversy," 1880, 1895. 

Maskell, Williain : A History of the Martin Marprelate Con- 
troversy in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, 1845. 

McKerro-w, R. B. : " The Martin Marprelate Controversy," 
Nashe's Works, vol. v, pp. 34 3. 

Thompson, E. N. S. : " The Controversy between the Puritans 
and the Stage," Yale Studies, xx, 1903. 



DRAMA OF CONTEMPORARY INCIDENT 387 

Pierce, W. : Historical Introduction to the Marprelate Tracts, 

1909. 
"Wilson, J. D. : " The Marprelate Controversy," Cambridge 

History of English Literature, vol. iii, ch. xvii, pp. 425-452. 

B. THE WAR OF THE THEATHES 

Penniman, J. H. : The War of the Theatres, 1897. 

Small, R. A. : The Stage-Quarrel between Ben Jonson and the 
so-called Poetasters, 1899. 

Wallace, C. W. : The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars, 
1597-1603.1908. Chapters xiii and xiv. [See also H. C. Hart, 
" Harvey, Marston, and Ben Jonson," Notes and Queries, Se- 
ries ix, vol. xi, pp. 201, 281, 343, 501. Continued in vol. xii, 
pp. 161, 263, 342, 403, 482 (1903).] 

TEXT AND COMMENTARY 
I. Plats representing Contemporart Murders 

Arden of Feversham, 1592. Reprinted 1599, 1633. For list of 
later editions and commentary, see The Shakespeare Apocrypha. 
The play has recently been reprinted in "Everyman's Library" 
(Pre-Shakespearean Tragedies) . 

A Warning for Fair 'Women. " Acted by the right Honor- 
able, the Lord Chamberlaine his Seruantes," 1599. Reprinted 
R. Simpson, The School of Shakspere, vol. ii, 1878. 

Yarington, Robert : Two Lamentable Tragedies. " The 
one, of the murther of Maister Beech a Chaundler in Thames- 
streete, and his boye, done by Thomas Merry," 1601. Re- 
printed, A. H. Bullen, Old Plays, iv, 1885. Discussion : R. A. 
Law, " Yarington's ' Two Lamentable Tragedies,' " Modern 
Language Review, v (1910), 167-177. 

A Yorkshire Tragedy. " Acted by his Maiesties Players at 
the Globe. Written by W. Shakspeare," 1608. Reprinted 
1619, and in the third and fourth Shakespeare Folios (1664, 
1685). For later editions and commentary, see The Shake- 
speare Apocrypha. 

II. Plats indirectlt influenced bt Contemporart Murders 

WiLKiNS, George r The Miseries of Enforced Marriage. 
. " As it is now playd by his Maiesties Seruants, 1607. Other 



386 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

editions, 1611, 1629, 1637. Reprinted, Dodsley, all editions ; 
Ancient British Drama, vol. ii, 1810. 
Heywood, Thomas : A Woman Killed with Kindness, 
1607. Another edition, 1617. Reprinted, Reed's and Collier's 
Dodsley ; Ancient British Drama, ii, 1810 ; Hey wood's Works, 
Mermaid edition, etc. 

III. Plats relatinq to the Wab op the Theatkes 
Dekker, Thomas : Satiromastix. " Or The vntrussing of the 
Humorous Poet. As it hath bin presented publikely, by the 
Right Honorable, the Lord Cbamberlaine his Seruants ; and 
priuately, by the Children of Paules," 1602. Reprinted: T. 
Hawkins, Origin of the English Drama, vol. iii, 1773 ; Works 
of Dekker, ed. Pearson, 1873 ; H. Scherer, Materialien, xx, 
1907. Edition by J. H. Penuiman announced in Belles Lettres 
series (with Poetaster). 
JONSON, Ben : Poetaster. " Or The Arraignment : As it hath 
beene sundry times priuately acted in the Blacke Friers, by 
the children of her Maiesties Chappell," 1602. Reprinted iu 
1616 and later editions of Jonson's works. (For bibliography 
to The Case is Altered, Every Man Out of his Humor, 
and Cynthia's Revels, which have only an indirect connec- 
tion with the controversy, see p. 416 ff.) 
Marston, John ? : Histriomastiz. " Or, the Player whipt," 
1610. Reprinted, R. Simpson, School of Shakspere, vol. ii, 
1878. (Marston's conjectural share in this play cannot extend 
beyond the mere revision of a work by another hand.) 
Jack Drum's Entertainment. " Or The Comedie Of Pasquill 
and Katherine. As it hath bene sundry times plaide by the 
Children of Powles," 1601. (Marston's authorship doubtful.) 
Reprinted, R. Simpson, School of Shakspere, vol. ii. 
"What You "Will, 1607. (Connection with the controversy 
vague.) Reprinted in Marston's Works, ed. Halliwell, 1856 : 
ed. A. H. Bullen, 1887. 
Shakespeare, William : Troilus and Cressida, 1609 (two 
issues). (Connection with the controversy doubtful.) 
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. " As it hath beene diuerse times 
acted by his Ilighnesse seruants in the Cittie of London : as 
also in the two Vniuersities of Cambridge and Oxford, and 
else-where," 1603. (Abbreviated and corrupted version.) An- 



DRAMA OF CONTEMPORARY INCIDENT 389 

other edition, " Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as 

much againe as it was, according to the true and perfect 

Coppie," 1G04. Reprinted 1G05, IGll, 1G37, etc. 

The Return from Parnassus. " Or The Scourge of Simony. 

Publiquely acted by the Students in Saint Johns Colledge in 

Cambridge," 1606. For further bibliography, see next chapter, 

' p. 420. 



CHAPTER XI 

REALISTIC COMEDY 

The last chapter in the history of the true Ehza- 
bethan drama is that which describes the acceptance 
into the highest theatrical favor of plays occupied 
primarily with the treatment of contemporary man- 
ners and vices. The sudden overwhelming popularity 
after 1600 of that comedy of class types and distinc- 
tively local application, which Ben Jonson's "Every 
Man in his Humor" (1598) perhaps inaugurated, is 
eloquent of changed conditions both on the stage and 
in the life of London. It indicates, on the one hand, 
the disappearance of the catholic largeness of view 
which generally universalizes and idealizes Eliza- 
bethan plays; and it bears witness to the breaking up 
of the national unity of the earlier simpler age into the 
strongly marked social and factional groups of Stuart 
England. 

Properly considered, the stage of Elizabeth's reign 
was far more realistic — more adequately expressive 
of national life and character — than any which suc- 
ceeded it; but, like all agents of legitimate realism, it 
reflected rather the fundamental moral and intellectual 
content than the material superficialities of the epoch. 
The growing consciousness of personal peculiarities 
of manner, and the tendency of the drama to devote 
its highest talent and most careful art to the treatment 
of the commonplace's of everyday existence were neces- 
sarily consequent upon a diminution in the earlier emo- 



REALISTIC COMEDY 391 

tional and imaginative ardor. It is in literature as in 
life : minute interest in external details and in whimsi- 
calities of speech or fashion seldom coexists with the 
intensest moral zeal or mental aspiration. 

Not only is seventeenth-century drama less exalted 
in tone than that which we may properly call Eliza- 
bethan; it is also far less universal in its scope. One 
of the most potent literary influences in the age of 
Elizabeth was the essential unity of taste, produced 
by the sudden development of national feeling which, 
in spite of the superficial lines of cleavage, made prince 
and peasant really one in sentiment, character, and 
manner, and gave to the society of the time much of 
the nawete and simple directness of primitive com- 
munities. This feature of the age is everywhere re- 
flected in the drama. The academic imitations of 
foreign aristocratic species never achieved real suc- 
cess, even with the higher classes, till they had been 
so modified as to appeal to the tastes of the general 
public.^ During the heyday of English drama, the 
twenty years following 1590, plays were incessantly 
being transported from the popular stage to the royal 
court, and back again; and those which most gained 
the applause of the rabble in the pit were nearly al- 
ways the favorites also of the learned and noble con- 
noisseurs. 

Social distinctions were felt by the Elizabethans as 
political barriers, indispensable to good government 
and therefore rigidly to be maintained; but there is no 

1 The sole exception to this statement is to be found in the earlier 
comedies of Lyly; and these plays owed their hold upon fashionable 
audiences less to purely dramatic features than to their connection 
with courtly gossip. 



392 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

evidence that the age connected differences of char- 
acter in any clear way with differences of station or 
employment. The social democracy of the time is 
constantly exemplified, to a degree often perplexing 
to the modern reader, in the dramas of Shakespeare 
and his contemporaries: in the motley society of the 
Henry IV plays and "The Merchant of Venice"; in the 
frank independence of the gardener in "Richard II," 
the ^ave-digger in "Hamlet," the sergeant in "Mac- 
beth"; and in the freedom everywhere accorded to the 
clown. The nobleman, the shepherd, and the merchant 
might meet on terms of at least temporary equality, 
not only on the stage, but in actual life as well; and the 
extreme haziness of the lines which mark the various 
gradations in dignity between the Dean of St. Paul's, 
Sir Thomas Gresham the merchant prince, Hobson 
the haberdasher, and John Goodfellow the pedlar in 
Heywood's play ^ is no very inaccurate picture of ex- 
isting conditions. For the Elizabethans, consequently, 
tragic and comic effect were both absolute. They 
resulted, from the character of the individual, and had 
nothing to do with the rank to which he belonged or 
the measure in which he followed the rules of estab- 
lished fashion. Even the most topical dramas of this 
period are in no sense limited to a special class. The 
authors of the murder plays found equal material for 
tragedy in the fate of the humble shop-keeper Beech, 
the city merchant Sanders, and the country gentle- 
men Arden and Calverley. 

Towards the close of the reign of Elizabeth, how- 
ever, there began to appear a change in the structure 
of society which became a characteristic feature of 
^ // You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody, Part II. 



REALISTIC COMEDY 393 

Jacobean life, and served to distinguish the entire 
Stuart drama from that of the Tudors. About 1600, 
as the all-absorbing excitement of the Spanish wars 
gave place to the general conviction of national secu- 
rity, and the flux of political and social adjustment 
consequent upon the Renaissance came to a stable 
equilibrium, the lines between the different ranks of 
the people grew hard and rigid; and the world of 
fashion evolved a code of manners complex and arti- 
ficial to a degree previously unknown. The opposition 
between the court and city circles and between town 
and country habits was sharply, even bitterly, accen- 
tuated; and the stage, which had interpreted life in 
terms of universal significance, became the mirror of 
local prejudice and the scourge of social folly. Thus 
it happened that the Elizabethan drama, which in its 
power of expressing general communal feeling is con- 
tinually reminiscent of the great national tragedy of 
Athens, was succeeded by a type of comedy suggestive 
rather of the narrow urban Ufe portrayed by the 
Roman dramatists. It is therefore no accident that 
the first years of the seventeenth century witnessed a 
sudden burst of direct Plautine and Terentian imi- 
tation more striking even than that caused by the 
original introduction of those authors to English play- 
wrights. The stifling atmosphere of over-ripe civiliza- 
tion pictured by the Latin plagiarists of the decadent 
Greek comedians — in which wit consists in the por- 
trayal of clever knavery and the ridicule of the mala- 
droit and unfashionable — was largely unintelligible 
to Udall. But by the time of James's accession, Lon- 
don manners had become far more intricate and self- 
conscious; and the greatest comic artists of that era, 



394 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Ben Jonson, Chapman, and Middlcton, often follow 
close in the path of Terence, producing thus a drama 
which is less truly a continuation of the Elizabethan 
method than a foreshadowing of Restoration tenden- 
cies. 

In tragedy also the ^change in the times made itself 
felt: for example, in the cult of unnatural horror, in 
the removal of the plot from the realm of ordinary 
human sympathy and acquaintance, and in the grow- 
ing inclination to represent the main figures as con- 
ventional dignitaries in conventional romantic cities. 
But in tragedy, the practice of Shakespeare main- 
tained the old standards till after the Jacobean age 
was well inaugurated; whereas, in comedy, we can 
detect even before the death of Elizabeth the begin- 
nings of the distinctively Stuart method. 

The great exponent of the genuine Elizabethan atti- 
tude toward realistic comedy is Shakespeare, who 
portrays with unsurpassed truth the characters and 
incidents of average contemporary life, but always 
for the purpose of relieving and interpreting a higher 
ideal theme. For this poet and for the age whose spirit 
he voiced, the world of commonplace actuality was 
never dissociated from the world of lofty achievement 
and romantic beauty. Though, like his princely hero, 
he does not fail to "remember the poor creature, small 
beer," ^ Ufe and humanity are for him invariably pos- 
sessed of a nobler meaning than can be discerned by the 
self-deluded realist, lago, or many soullessly objective 
authors of Jacobean comedy. Thus, Shakespeare's 
plays always infer, behind the material phenomena of 
existence, — the suckling of fools and chronicling of 
1 S Uenry IV, II, ii, 10. 



REALISTIC COMEDY 395 

small beer, — moral and imaginative issues which de- 
termine the dramatic standards of value and inspire 
the answer to every problem presented. 

In Shakespeare's earliest indei)endent play, "Love's 
Labor 's Lost," he draws very largely upon the absurd- 
ities of the life about him, mimicking familiar coun- 
try types in Costard, Dull, Holofernes, and Sir Na- 
thaniel, while in Armado and the various lords and 
ladies he ridicules the passing whims of courtly society. 
So in "Much Ado About Nothing," the comedy which 
shows most kinship with "Love's Labor's Lost," * the 
plebeian buffoonery of Dogberry and Verges is like- 
wise accompanied by the attempt to imitate in the 
dialogue of Beatrice and Benedick the wit and badi- 
nage of contemporary high life. In both these plays, 
however, the realism is a matter of mood and charac- 
ter rather than of microscopic external detail; and in 
both it is subordinated to a romantic intrigue plot. 

Shakespeare's mature treatment carries the humors 
and incidents of ordinary life even farther into the 
sphere of universal truth. In his greatest plays the 
realistic and fanciful elements are perfectly blended 
and mutually complementary. No longer products of 
antipodal regions of thought or opposite points of 
view, they become in his philosophy the warp and 
woof from whose intertwining threads the fabric of 
true life must in every age be woven. Thus he cuts 
realistic drama adrift from the limitations of space and 
time, and uses the mass of observation concerning the 

1 There appears to be much better cause than it is now usual to 
allow for identifying Much Ado in an earlier form with the Love's 
Labor Won of Meres and regarding it as a twin drama to Love 9 
Labor 's Lost. 



396 THE TUDOR DRxVMA 

superficialities of character and action, which he had 
culled in London and Stratford, to picture forth as 
occasion might demand either the Roman mobs of 
"Caesar" and "Coriolanus," the rude mechanicals of 
Thesean Athens, the merry rogue of sea-girt Bohemia, 
or the Trinculo and Stephano of his enchanted island. 
This procedure is entirely expressive of the general 
Elizabethan spirit in its just indifference to petty 
anachronism and its great power of conceiving and 
vitalizing distant scenes. Artistically, also, it is wise 
and right. The high romantic passions can be analyzed 
and presented in many media; but the humbler, 
ephemeral details, which make up so much of life and 
so little of history, can ordinarily be realized only in 
one's immediate environment. Shakespeare's intro- 
duction into the midst of plays pitched among remote 
or fanciful surroundings of scenes in minor key, which 
reflect the monotone of existence in sixteenth-century 
England, is therefore no real breach of unity or con- 
sistency. On the contrary, it shows the dramatist's 
recognition of the great principle that life, at all times 
and under all conditions, is a coat of many colors never 
adequately represented by the few bright patches of 
which alone romance takes cognizance. And those 
precise readers offended by the sweaty nightcaps of 
the Roman rabble or the English ballad-mongering 
of the Bohemian Autolycus make thoughtless outcry 
against casual inconsistencies inherent in the full deep 
grasp of society as a whole which gives to the plays 
in question the truest realism in their eternal faith- 
fulness to human nature. 

This fundamental belief in the immutable com- 
plexity of life makes Shakespeare insist, on the one 



REALISTIC COMEDY 897 

hand, that cobblers and weavers must have had their 
place in the commonwealth of Caesar or of Theseus, 
and that they must have reasoned and acted then 
much as in his own time. On the other hand, it causes 
him to give also to his individual comic figures a deep 
humanity which renders them more than the mere 
product of transitory conditions. Falstaff, Sir Toby 
Belch, Malvolio, Autolycus and the rest speak the 
intellectual language and exemplify the vices and 
prejudices of that particular London envirdnment 
whose contact had taught Shakespeare to conceive 
them, and in terms of which alone he could convinc- 
ingly depict their characters. Yet, like their creator, 
they are not of an age, but for all time. What the poet 
had learned, item by item, from personal experience 
of the world through which he walked, concerning the 
less acute issues of life, he gives forth in his humorous 
figures so digested and explained that it finds equal 
currency in bygone Britain and in visionary Illyria. 
And the reason for this is Shakespeare's abiding faith 
that in any society worth portraying, anywhere ex- 
istent, the eccentric force of heroic and romantic aspi- 
ration must inevitably be held in balance by the sane 
power of that humorous or "realistic" tendency, 
which sees things as they are and does not look beyond 
actual conditions. For Shakespeare, therefore, realism 
is no mere by-product of his own generation, self-con- 
cerned and self-destructive, but an everlasting con- 
servative force which keeps the world sweet and habit- 
able. Falstaff and Mercutio are expressions of the vis 
inertioe of civilization, which maintains the equili- 
brium of society against its revolutionary Hotspurs 
and Romeos. Thus Falstaff finds his logical unques- 



898 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

tionable place in the world, whether we choose to 
think of him as Oldcastle, the companion of Henry V's 
youth, or as Fastolfe, the cowardly knight of Talbot's 
wars a generation later, or, disregarding history alto- 
gether, simply as the fat boon companion of Shake- 
speare's own day. In all that really matters his figure 
possesses as much truth in the earliest of these environ- 
ments as in the latest; and the critic has little more 
reason to object to the employment of the street and 
taveril sights of 1600 for the purpose of" realizing the 
character of a fifteenth-century epicure, than he would 
have for forbidding Csesar, Hector, and Hamlet to 
speak English. 

Thus, the trend of Shakespeare's dramatic practice 
set increasingly, as his genius developed, toward the 
utilization of what was accidental and ephemeral in 
the world around him for the demonstration of uni- 
versal truth. More and more clearly he seems to have 
perceived that realism is as little as romance itself the 
necessary adjunct of a particular time and place; and 
his greatest realistic play, "King Lear," is a tragedy 
located, perhaps intentionally, at the farthest distance 
from the contemporary world. "Lear " is throughout a 
delineation, not of history or of heroic tragedy, but of 
the more domestic aspects in the relation of man to 
man, which each writer can understand only from 
sympathetic observation of the life before his window 
and which few have ever been able to reproduce save 
by means of the closest transcription. In Shakespeare's 
treatment, King Lear and his daughters lose the vague 
royal dignity which the earlier anonymous play on 
the same subject allows them, and become practically 
bourgeois types; while the kingdom of Britain could 



REALISTIC COMEDY 399 

be replaced without dramatic loss by a farm. "Mac- 
beth" and "Othello," typical expressions of heroic 
tragedy, deal with the fate of supernormal figures, 
nature's aristocrats, overwhelmed by the most tre- 
mendous catastrophes: but "King Lear" is a parable 
of common life possible only for one whose eyes had 
been long fixed on the low average of human society, 
and designed to portray the hideous consequences 
attendant upon the ignoble faults of vulgar self-will 
and petty ingratitude. Lear, Goneril, Regan, and 
Cordelia are all fundamentally creatures of the hard 
actual world; and their egotisms and bickering belong 
to the same type and have obviously the same source 
in contemporary observation as dozens of the cynical 
or satirical scenes in the city comedies of Jonson and 
Chapman. The unlovely aspects of human society 
when centred in self and unenlightened by the spark 
of romantic endeavor, furnished the ordinary seven- 
teenth-century playwright with matter for merriment, 
or at best for satire; but Shakespeare has here shaped 
it into tragedy too deep for tears. 

The realism of "King Lear" is the proper pendant 
to the idealism of "The Tempest." Both plays show 
the poet's sharp experience of the corroding mean- 
nesses of life and both testify to his triumph over their 
discouraging influence. The author's transference of 
his story, in "Lear," to the broad stage of myth and 
fiction enables him to give universal application to his 
picture of the unloveliness of that dwarfed and dis- 
torted human nature in which the theatre of his time 
was coming more and more to find material for careless 
laughter. The same transfer allows him scope for 
showing, as no writer has ever shown, before or since. 



400 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

the high beneficent purpose behind this bleak world 
of envy and self-interest. With a freedom hardly 
conceivable in any reproduction of temporal and local 
conditions, he here demonstrates the refinement of 
the originally faulty or unripened characters of Lear 
and Cordeha on the rack of partly seK-imposed suffer- 
ing into the noblest, tenderest, and most perfect types 
of mortal being. 

Only in a single play of his maturity — probably of 
his entire career — does Shakespeare give any indica- 
tion of following the bent of the time in concentrating 
attention upon the humorous detail of life without 
reference to its proper function as the interpreter and 
corrective of more idealistic tendencies. "The Merry 
Wives of Windsor" stands out conspicuous in the list 
of Shakespeare's works as the only play which the poet 
localizes in the England of his own age, even as it is 
the only one in which interest in ludicrous situation 
finally predominates over the graver ends of charac- 
terization and philosophy of life. It is, indeed, far from 
being a narrowly realistic comedy after the model of 
the popular "comedy of manners." The humor of Fal- 
staff and the merry wives is, upon the whole, clean and 
hearty; the slight underplot of Anne Page and Fenton 
adds a welcome dash of romance; and the fairy ma- 
chinery of the last act is pretty obviously introduced 
for the purpose of freshening the close atmosphere of 
scheming and deceit. Yet the play undoubtedly indi- 
cates a departure in the direction of that species of 
comedy which arises by the evaporation out of life of 
its grosser details, and which, in the face of Shake- 
speare's general protest, was growing more and more 
fashionable. 



REALISTIC COMEDY 401 

There is every reason for accepting the essential 
truth of the story, reported by Dennis and Rowe/ that 
the "Merry Wives" was composed in haste to the 
special order of Queen EUzabeth, who demanded to 
see Falstaff in love. The standard of taste which would 
prompt such a desire was easily intelligible to Shake- 
speare, and within certain limitations he seems not to 
have been above gratifying it.^ The suspicion lies very 
strong that in this comedy the character of Falstaff has 
suffered foul play with the entire privity of the author. 
One may borrow the words spoken of Oldcastle in the 
Epilogue to "Henry IV" (Part II) and say that Fal- 
staff "died a martyr" in "Henry V," "and this is not 
the man." We have seen how the irresistible figure 
of the true Falstaff — the incomparable expression of 
supreme intellect focussed upon the physical details of 
life — swelled out the Henry IV plays beyond their 
normal size, and came near to swamping entirely their 
serious!^ purpose. It would seem likely that Shake- 
speare has taken the opportunity in "The Merry 
Wives of Windsor" of effectually cutting the throat of 
this lovable but ungovernable giant by an intentional 
travesty of his character, which pleased without in- 
flaming the vulgar appetite of the public. Thus, the 
play would remain an historical document measuring 
very accurately both the strength of the general de- 
mand, about 1599, for realistic comedy and also the 
attitude of Shakespeare toward the type. 

* See N. Smith, Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare, 1903, 
5 and 304. 

* The most notable examples of Shakespeare's occasional willing- 
ness to sacrifice art in the interest of popular appeal are probably 
the unnatural situations presented in the closing acts of the Two 
Gentlemen of Vcwna and Measure for Measure. 



402 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

The evolution of realistic comedy as a distinct dra- 
matic species was the result of a tendency to isolate 
and catalogue the peculiarities of the various classes 
of contemporary society. The developed comedy of 
this sort gained its ends almost solely by caricature of 
types rather than by individual portraiture; but dur- 
ing the last five or six years of Elizabeth's reign the 
species took its rise from a very miscellaneous set of 
performances. 

Undoubtedly, Ben Jonson is in the highest degree 
responsible for this comedy, as regards both the struc- 
tural form which it took and the critical principles 
upon which it was based. Quite simultaneously with 
Jonson's earliest comedies appeared, however, several 
by George Chapman, which exemplify in less positive 
and influential form many of the same general ten- 
dencies. Chapman agreed with Jonson in being both a 
scholar and a frequent imitator of the classics. The 
plays of these writers gave the situations and the stock 
characters of Plautus and Terence remarkable fre- 
quence on the early seventeenth-century stage, im- 
buing realistic comedy with a certain Latin coloring 
which is distinguishable not merely in actual imita- 
tions like "All Fools" and "The Alchemist," but even 
also in such essentially original works as "Eastward 
Hoe" and "Bartholomew Fair." 

The first comedies of Chapman and Jonson contain 
only incidental suggestions of the realistic method. 
Chapman's "Blind Beggar of Alexandria," which may 
have been composed as early as 1596, is in point of 
structure a monstrous absurdity. A sensational tragic 
theme, dealing with the ingenious villainies of a shep- 
herd's son in fourfold disguise, is suddenly brought 



REALISTIC COMEDY 403 

to an entirely unsatisfactory comic conclusion. The 
main story is as far removed from actual fact as it is 
from the requirements of art ; yet the treatment of the 
three bourgeois sisters in their quest and experience 
of matrimony brings into the play a fitful glimpse of 
London realism, and suggests many more developed 
portraits of the same type. 

Two early plays of Ben Jonson illustrate the forma- 
tive stage in that poet's comic method. "The Case Is 
Altered" is in the main an attractive piece of roman- 
tic apprentice work, based upon the old motive of 
infant confusion, which was early introduced from 
Latin and Italian drama. ^ The most individual part 
of the play, however, and the only part which has 
significance in the light of Jonson's later career, is that 
dealing with the subsidiary humors of Juniper the 
cobbler, Peter Onion, and their companions. 

"A Tale of a Tub " is a far more Jonsonian work 
than "The Case Is Altered." It concerns itself exclu- 
sively with contemporary London types, most of which 
are presented with real wit and appreciation. Limiting 
its action strictly to the compass of a single day and 
to the immediate suburbs of London, the play develops 
rather amusingly a thin story of mutual deceit and 
misunderstanding. The date of this piece is somewhat 
uncertain. It was not printed till three years after 
Jonson's death, ^ but it seems to have been composed 
in its earliest form before the end of the sixteenth cen- 

• The original source of this theme was doubtless the Captivi of 
Plautus, which was directly imitated in The Case Is Altered. The 
same motive had been employed with variations in The Bugbears, 
Misogonus, and The Weakest Goeth to the Wall. 

^ In the 1640 Folio edition of his works. 



404 THE TUDOR DRiVMA 

tury. Immaturity appears in the attempt to offer a 
mere series of comic situations in place of an ordered 
plot, and in the failure to endow the figures with any 
really representative value. In these respects "A 
Tale of a Tub," like Porter's overrated "Two Angry 
Women of Abingdon" (1599) of the same approxi- 
mate date, bears less relationship to the realistic com- 
edy of Jonson's maturity than to unreasoned earlier 
efforts at plebeian farce such as "Gammer Gurton's 
Needle" and "Misogonus." 

For a number of years there existed a parallel and a 
rather close connection between the dramatic careers 
of Chapman and Jonson. Both appear first as hack 
writers for Henslowe's company, and it is difficult to 
distinguish between their early theories of comedy. 
Professor Parrott has remarked ^ that Jonson con- 
structed his "Case Is Altered" out of the "Captivi" 
and "Aulularia" of Plautus in the very same year in 
which Chapman was similarly fusing the plots of two 
Terentian plays - in "All Fools." The idea of imita- 
tion in the ordinary sense is here precluded by the 
radical difference between the plays in question. It is 
wortli noting that "All Fools" would make no very 
surprising figure in the gallery of Jonsonian realism, — 
beside "Every Man in his Humor" and "Epiccene," 
for example. Conversely, "The Case Is Altered," 
which is strikingly opposed to Jonson's other work 
and was never openly avowed by that poet, shows 
considerable resemblance to several of Chapman's 
medleys of buffoonery and Latinized romance, such 
as "May Day" and "Monsieur D'Olive." 

^ Chapman's All Fools and Gentleman Usher, Belles-Leltres ed., 
p. xxxvi. * Viz., Fleautonliinontmenos aud Adetphi. 



REALISTIC COMEDY 405 

So, with reference to Jonson's peculiar speciality, 
the evolution of the "comedy of humors," Chapman 
appears concurrently in the field. It is hardly possi- 
ble to decide whether the honor of prior exemplification 
of this type should rest with "Every Man in his Hu- 
mor" or with the "Humorous Day's Mirth" of the 
other writer. The question is not one which can affect 
our ultimate judgment concerning the relative position 
of the two poets concerned. Chapman's "Humorous 
Day's Mirth," mentioned by Henslowe in May, 1597, 
as the "Comedy of Humors," is a piece of no distinc- 
tion and of no perceptible influence in its own day; 
while Jonson's much better thought out and better 
constructed comedy created a new epoch in drama- 
turgy. It is by no means improbable that Jonson and 
Chapman worked side by side, with considerable ex- 
change of ideas, from the time of their emergence as 
dramatic writers in the pay of Henslowe till after their 
formal collaboration in "Eastward Hoe" (1605). Be- 
ing both poets of a scholarly and reflective tempera- 
ment, they appear to have striven equally for the 
introduction upon the English stage of classic plot 
material and for the application to contemporary 
society of the neat if soulless scale of stock types upon 
which the Latin and Italian comedies were based. 
There is no indication, however, that Chapman ever 
attained to a permanent theory of comic comj)osition 
or evolved any consistent method. Romance, which 
is often colorless, and blunt realism, which is not 
always humorously effective, huddle each other in 
his latest plays no less than in the earliest. Indeed, 
"All Fools," which in its original form would appear 
to have been one of the first of Chapman's comedies. 



UH5 TlIF TT'DOR DRAMA 

remains on tho whole tho niost satisfactory in plot 
manipulation and in eomvption, 

Thns C^hapman sooms to have lent to tho progress 
of realist io eonnnly little n\on.^ than tho original half- 
blind inipnlso Nvhioh helpeii to stivrt it on its way. In 
the shapinji of its oonrso ho t^x^k small part; and the 
main intor«.\st of his soYot\ or eight * independent oomo- 
dios for tho student of dramatic evolution rests not iu 
any coustvutivo advance which they made towanl the 
filial ilitforentiation of a ciMUtHly of Knglish ty^xvs. It 
lies rather, as rn>fessor Tara^tt has ajiain suggest oti,^ 
in the fact that his nnprv>grt\«;sive series of plays, half- 
n>mantic and half-n\distic, form a conmx'ting nuxlium 
lH^twt.HMi tho frank heten^geneily of nnuh nndovolo^Hxl 
Elizalx^than drama and tho brilliant, but quite uuhfe- 
like and insimvro blending of various interests in 
Fletcher's tragi-conuxly. 

lien .lonson cn\ittHl n\distic conuniy as a distinct 
type with establishtxl laws and a clear-cut field oi 
action. "Every Man in his llmnor" translate into 
terms of ».\>ntemporary life a numlvr of tho most sue- 
ivssful cluvracters of Plautine drama: the m »/<•,< j//oriWi*s 
in Hobailill. the intriguing slave in l^rainworm, tho 
riotous son and sovort^ father in tho KnowoUs. To these 
art^ addtxl similar sttx'k hgun^s in tho town and coun- 
try gidl. tho merry magistrate, jealous huslvvnd, and 
"downrigiit " country squirw "Every Man in his 
Humor" was perhaps the most sensational st«ge suc- 

* E*uftu\ird Uof, in which Chapiuaii wjvs tudt\l by Jonsotx and 
Marsliut. is not inchuUxl iu tt»is Ttvkouin^j;. Tho iloul^tful pitxv is 
iS«> GiUs CiWtxwtp l^UHH>\ vxuuvrniivs; which, stv T. M. Parrv^tt, 

^ * .1// /\h>/,« (IH(/ Ot-HtUman Vskcr. Bfih.s~Lfttrr<it cd.. p. xU\ . tT. 



REALISTIC COIMEDY 407 

cess of the close of the sixtcentli century, aiul il lauj^ht 
the dramatists of the day to marshal humun society 
into classes and j;cncra instead of seckinj^ to ileal with 
the individual person. When this change hail become 
complete, Elizabethan comedy had yielded place to 
Jacobean, 

With the single exception of "Poetaster," a play of 
personal satire evoked by the "War of the Theatres," 
■in 1001, all the comedies of Jonson published in the 
1616 edition of his works arc based upon this tiicory 
of class peculiarities or "humors," which Jonson 
steadily developed and made more and more capable 
of expressing tiic externalities of Stuart life. The 
growing skill of the poet in conveying a brilliant criti- 
cism of contemporary conditions by means of vaguely 
individualized model-iigures rcachcil its apex in the 
intricate anti-Puritan satire of "Bartholomew Fair," 
acted in KJlt, but first published in the second Folio 
of 1()40. 

"Every Man in his Humor," as Jonson originally 
composed it, and as it was published in l()Ol, had an 
Italian setting. Before the appearance of the first 
Folio edition in 1616, the scene had hccu frankly 
shifted to London, and the Italian dramoti}i perrwnw 
rcchristened Englishmen. This change has more sig- 
nificance than may appear, for realistic comedy only 
became an independent type when it restricted itself 
to the neigiiborhood of contemporary London and thus 
defeated tlie im{)ulsc to ronuintic contamination. The 
plays which blend careful sketches of English real life 
with alien non-realistic plots and foreign names belong 
in the main to the Elizabethan dnimatic method, and 
arc far more frciiuent before 160:5 than after that date. 



40S THE TUDOR DRA^TA 

Such are, of course, the dramas of Shakespeare, who 
never gives n\iHsm iimlispiitod eoutml of his stage. 

The transitional years. 1598-1608, produeetl a num- 
ber of otlier comethes which cater to the rising inter- 
est in actual city tyjx's, while still clinging to the 
usual older themes as well. The most successful of 
these etforts to fuse the old style with the new is per- 
haps the "Patient Grissell" of Dekker, Chettle, mid 
Ilaughton, which was acteil early in 1(500.^ In this 
play, where the workmanship of Dekker is through- 
out very conspicuous, the meeting of the two spirits 
is so clear that it must impress the hastiest reader. 
The treatment of the delicate story of Griseldis and 
the presentation of the idyllic poverty of her father's 
household render the main plot an altogether charm- 
ing example of Elizabethan romance. Dekker has 
nowhere gi\XMi expression to the unpruned luxuriance 
of the Elizabethan imagination in tiner verse than that 
of the Man|uess's introductory eulogj' on hunting: — 

**0h! 't is a lo^'ely habit, when green youth. 

Like to the tlowery hli>ssom of the spring. 

Conforms his outwivrvl habit to his mind. 

Ixx^k how yon one-oy\l waggoner of heaven 

Hath, by his horses' fiery-wingeil ho^^fs. 

Burst ope the mehuieholy jail of night ; 

And with his gilt beams' eunning alohym>' 

Turn'd all these clouds to gv^ld, who, with the winds 

Upon their misty shoulders, bring in day. 

Then sully not this morning with foul kK>ks. 

But teach your ji.xnmd spirits to ply the chase. 

For hunting is a sport for emperors." 

Nor can there easily' be foimd a more pleasing instance 
* See Umsiowt's Diary, ed. Greg, vcJ. ii. i06, i07. 



REALISTIC COMEDY 409 

of the ultra-romantic treatment of humble life than in 
Janiculo's speech to his sou: ' — 

" Come, sit by me. While I work to get bread. 
And Grissil spin us yarn to clothe our backs, 
Thou shall read ilocLrinc to us for the soul. 
Then, what shall wo thnv want ? nolhiuf,', my son; 
For when wc ccaso from work, even in that while. 
My song shall charm grief's ears, and care beguile." 

So the clownish servant, Babulo, who waits upon 
Janicultt's family with a tenderness thinly disfj;uised 
under witty impudence, is an essentially romantic 
creation, owing little to' contemporary observation, 
and quite unfettered to any particular time or place. 
He belongs to the kindred of Touchstone, and has no 
connection with the Brainworms of the realistic school. 

With this story of Griseldis, which forms in itself 
a perfect romantic comedy, has been combined an ut- 
terly different realistic plot centring about the Welsh 
widow Gwenthyan. The idea of relieving the exces- 
sive self-abasement of Grissell by the companion pic- 
ture of a termagant wife is one which Chaucer would 
have approved; and the joining of the themes is rather 
skilfully effected. Nothing, however, has been done 
to conceal the entire dissimilarity of the two strains 
involved. Gwenthyan and her two suitors. Sir Owen 
ap Meredith and Emulo, are clearly realistic types 
after the new manner of Jonson. It seems impossible 
to doubt that Emulo is a conscious echo of Fastidious 
Brisk in "Every Man out of his Humor." Indeed, 
Emulo's fantastic account of his bloodless duel with 
Sir Owen 2 follows so close upon Jonson's description 

■ » Collier's edition, 1811, p. 11. « Ibid., pp. 40-42. ,' 



410 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

of the engagement between Brisk and Luculento 
("Every Man out of his Humor," IV, iv), that it 
may fairly be held to pass the limits of justifiable 
imitation. 

This bit of plagiarism, together with a mischievous 
allusion to the fact that the illiterate Emulo can 
"never be saved by his book," ^ may well have irri- 
tated Jonson and caused Dekker to be joined with 
Marston in the next year's satire of the "Poetaster" 
(1601). That Dekker was indeed mainly responsible 
for this sub-plot in the new realistic style of Jonson 
is pretty evident from the recurrence of the identical 
theme and figures in the Mistress Miniver and Sir 
Rees ap Vaughan episode of his " Satiromastix " 
(1601). 

Jonsonian influence appears to have introduced a 
streak of realistic satire into a number of other mot- 
ley plays produced during the last five years of Eliza- 
beth's reign. The manuscript comedy of "Timon," 
first printed by Dyce in 1842, unites with a light- 
hearted treatment of the story of the Athenian mis- 
anthrope a Latinizing farce of stock types, among 
which occur such familiar figures as the covetous 
father and clownish son, the vain foolish lover, mis- 
chievous page, and wanton nurse. The source of this 
play, the circumstances of presentation, and its rela- 
tion to Shakespeare's tragedy on the same subject 
are all matters of dispute. In the light of recent in- 
vestigation, it seems probable that the play before us 

* An allusion to pardon "by benefit of clergy," to which Jonson 
had owed his life in 1598. Compare the reference to "some that 
have been saved by their neck- verse" in connection with Horace 
(Jonson) in Satiromastix (Scherer's ed., I. 384). 



REALISTIC COMEDY 411 

— in spite of an air of academic exclusiveness which is 
carried even to the length of quoting Greek in the 
original — was known to Shakespeare, and that it 
supplied him with important elements in his tragedy 
which he could have procured from no other known 
source. The unknown author of "Timon," while 
standing creditor to Shakespeare, may have been 
debtor to Ben Jonson, for a remarkably close parallel 
has been lately pointed out between his sketches of 
Gelasimus and Pseudocheus and those of Amorphus 
and Asotus in "Cynthia's Revels." ^ 

In the "Parnassus" plays — likewise academic 
productions of about the same date (1598-1601) — 
we can trace the gradual influence, if not of Jonson's 
personal example, certainly of the type of local comedy 
based on classic models, which Jonson individualized 
and established on the English stage. In the first play 
of the group, "The Pilgrimage to Parnassus," which 
was acted at St. John's College, Cambridge, about 
Christmas, 1597, we have a mere allegory of the vari- 
ous tasks and employments of college life, with no 
further attempt at comic effect than can be made out 
of local references to Hobson the carrier and "my 
hoste Johns of the Crowne." The two parts of "The 
Return from Parnassus," which complete the trilogy, 
(1600, 1601 ?) are conspicuous, on the other hand, for 
the increasing degree in which they subordinate the 
original allegorical motive to the delineation of real- 

^ See C. R. Baskervill, English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy, 
268-272, and H. C. Hart, Jonson's Works, I, xliv. It should be said 
that the general character of the parallel passages seems' to suggest 
a common source rather than deliberate imitation on the part of 
either English poet. 



412 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

istic types. The first part of the "Return" contains 
a convincing scene between the Cambridge Draper, 
Tailor, and Inn-keeper, who meet to complain of stu- 
dents' bad debts. Gullio in the same play repeats the 
comedy of Master Matthew in "Every Man in his 
Humor," with his inanity, his absurd poetic ambition 
and his pilfered tags of verse; while a life-like passage 
describing Ingenioso's visit to his Patron handles with 
admirable fidelity a situation otherwise treated but 
hardly improved in "The Puritan." 

In the second part of the "Return," the symbolical 
story of Ingenioso, Judicio, Studioso, Academico, etc., 
is so complicated by realistic additions of every kind 
as to be almost entirely unintelligible. It is every- 
where obvious that the interest of the author has been 
distracted from the general allegorical framework of 
the piece to the series of ironic studies of contemporary 
manners which he has embroidered upon it; and the 
unique value of this curious play results from the can- 
dor with which it devotes itself to the delineation and 
criticism of present conditions in a very great num- 
ber of the avenues of life. 

The recently recovered play of "Club Law," as- 
signed by its editor to a date (1599-1600) about level 
with that of the second member of the "Parnassus" 
group, illustrates with equal vividness the satirical 
propensities of the Cambridge undergraduate stage. 
It is not possible, however, to bring "Club Law" into 
any such direct relationship with the drama at large 
as the last two Parnassus plays everywhere exhibit. 
"Club Law" owes its pecuUar interest to its frankly 
occasional nature. Instead of treating general types of 
character, it aims its satire at unpopular individuals 



REALISTIC COMEDY 413 

among the Cambridge townsmen; and it thus has its 
raison d'etre, not in the philosophic analysis of existing 
society, which was becoming more and more the theme 
of professional London comedy, but in the mere grati- 
fication of academic pique. 

Two other plays, which belong presumably to the 
very last years of Elizabeth, mark the transition to 
realistic comedy. Both are shown by the large number 
of extant editions to have been among the most popu- 
lar performances of the time with the reading public. 
One of these plays, "Wily Beguiled," was first printed 
in 1606, the year in which the second part of "The 
Return from Parnassus" appeared, and, like the other 
piece, was acted probably several years earlier. That 
"Wily Beguiled" was originally an academic play is 
almost certain, in spite of its broad general vogue later, 
from the glee with which the triumph of the poor 
scholar over his worldly rivals is depicted, and from 
the excessive afiFectation of much of the verse. Col- 
lege dilettantism may be responsible for the presence 
of two good songs as well as for the large number of 
instances of verbal plagiarism and the incongruous 
introduction of Sylvanus, Nymphs, and Satyrs. The 
chief interest of the play consists, however, in the 
realistic scenes which deal with Gripe, Churms, Plod- 
All, and Will Cricket. As regards these scenes, "Wily 
Beguiled" occupies an important halfway position 
between Lyly's Latinized comedy of "Mother Bom- 
bie," which our play much resembles in plot, and the 
mature Stuart plays of English real life. 

"A Pleasant conceited Comedie, Wherein is shewed 
how a Man may Choose a good Wife from a Bad" 
has been ascribed on insubstantial grounds to Thomas 



414 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Heywood.^ This play, like "Wily Beguiled," is distin- 
guished bj'- its unblushing plagiarism; and the most 
memorable thing about it is perhaps the travesty of 
the potion story in "Romeo and Juliet." The figures 
in the comedy, though all nominally English and con- 
temporary, are depicted either vaguely or with undue 
exaggeration; nor is the plot construction sufficiently 
good to reflect credit upon the dramatic taste of the 
seventeenth century, which required seven editions 
within thirty-three years. The play's hold on the 
public doubtless lay in the absurdities of the clownish 
school-master, Sir Aminadab, and in the sentimental 
presentation of the trials of the patient wife, — a 
theme apparently popular at this time and similarly 
treated in "The London Prodigal." 

With the curious symmetry which not infrequently 
characterizes literary movements, it happened that the 
efflorescence of Stuart realism in comedy coincided 
precisely with the beginning of James I's reign. The 
plays just considered, belonging to the last five years 
of the Tudor period, are all experimental in character; 
and, with the exception of "Every Man in his Hu- 
mor," they all contain nearly or quite as much of the 
Elizabethan as of the later spirit. Even in Jonson's 
"Every Man out of his Humor" and " Cynthia's Rev- 
els" (1601), we have elaborate preliminary studies in 
type portraiture rather than finished dramas in the 
new style. 

The four or five years immediately subsequent to 
James I's accession in ICO.S are remarkable for an ex- 
traordinary outburst of realistic comedy. To the years 
1603-1608 belong "The London Prodigal" and "The 
• See Fleay, Biog. Chron. Eng. Drama, i, iHO f. 



REALISTIC COMEDY 415 

Puritan" (1607), "Eastward Hoe" by Jonson, Chap- 
man, and Marston, the "Westward Hoe" and "North- 
ward Hoe" of Dekker and Webster, and Jonson's 
"Volpone." The same years saw the production also 
of five admirable comedies by Middleton, who ranks 
with Jonson as the finest exponent of Stuart realism: 
"Michaelmas Term" (1607), "A Trick to Catch the 
Old One" (1608), "The Family of Love" (1608), 
"Your Five Gallants" (registered, March, 1608), and 
"A Mad World, My Masters." 

No true parallel to any of these plays can be found 
among the productions of the real Elizabethans. Yet 
these form the most distinct and vigorous class of 
drama produced by the younger poets in the eight or 
nine years (1603-1611/12) during which Shakespeare 
was triumphantly maintaining the old catholic art upon 
the Globe stage in the face of a general yielding else- 
where to more temporary interests. With the single 
exception of "Volpone," the principal scene of these 
plays is always London. Without any exception, the 
group is characterized by a restriction of view to the 
most tangible and superficial phenomena of worldly ex- 
perience. Just in proportion as Jonson and his fellows 
acquired their consummate mastery in interpreting 
the actual impressions of eye and ear, they lost touch 
with the inner voice of ideal fancy. Thus, the imagina- 
tion, divorced from reason and observation, was left 
to find expression in works of dishonest sentiment and 
morbid horror. 



4ia THE TUDOR DRAMii 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

A. PLATS PARTIALLY REALISTIC HAVING A FOREIGN SETTTNG 
(SHAKESPEAREAN PLAYS OMITTEd) 

Chapman, George. Dramatic Works, 1873, 3 vols. ; ed. R, H, 
Shepherd, 1874, 1889. General discussion : E. Koeppel, " Quel- 
len-Studien zu den Dramen George Chapman's, Philip Mas- 
singer's uud John Ford's," 1897 ; A. L. Stiefel, " George Chap- 
man und das italienische Drama," Sh. Jb., 35 (1899), 180- 
213. 

The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, " most pleasantly dis- 
coursing his variable humours in disguised shapes," 1598. 
A Humorous Day's Mirth, 1599. 

All Fools, 1605. Reprinted in Reed's and Collier's Dodsley ; 
Ancient British Drama, ii, 1810 ; W. L. Phelps, Chapman, 
Mermaid series; T. M. Parrott, Belles Lettres series, 1907. 
Discussion : M. Stier, " Chapman's All Fools mit Beriick- 
sichtigung seiner Quellen," Halle, 1904 ; E. Woodbridge, 
" An Unnoted Source of Chapman's All Fools," Jrl. Germ. 
Phil., i, 338-341. 
Monsieur D'Olive, 1606. Reprinted, C. W. Dilke, Old Eng- 
lish Plays, 1814. 
The Gentleman Usher, 1606. Reprinted, T. M. Parrott, 

Belles Lettres series, 1907. 
May-Day, 1611. Reprinted, C. W. Dilke, Old English Plays. 
The Widow's Tears, 1612. Reprinted in Dodsley, all edd. 
except Hazlitt. 
Dekker, Chettle, and Haughton : Patient Grissill, 1603. 
Reprinted, J. P. Collier, Shakespeare Society, 1841 ; A. B. Gro- 
sart, Dekker's " Non-Dramatic Works " {sic) in Huih Library, 
V, 1886. 
Jonson, Ben. (For collected works, etc., see p. 418.) 

Every Man in his Humor. Original version, with Italian 
characters, 1601. Reprinted, C. Grabau, Sh. Jb., 38 (1902) ; 
W. W. Greg, Materialien, x, 1905 ; F. E. Schelling, Every- 
man, Jonson, i. Discussion : A. Buff, " The Quarto Edition 
of Ben Jonson's ' Every Man in his Humour,' " Engl. Stud., 
i (1877), 181 £E ; B. Nicholson, "On the Dates of the Two 



REALISTIC COMEDY 417 

Versions of ' Every Man in his Humour,' " Antiquary, vi 

(1882), 15-19, 106-110. See also p. 418. 
The Case Is Altered, 1609 (two issues). Discussion : W. 

Sperrhake, '' Ben Jonson's ' The Case is Altered ' uud seine 

Quellen," Halle, 1905. 
Poetaster, " Or The Arraignment," 1602. Reprinted, H. S. 

Mallory, Yo.le Studies, xxvii, 1905. 
Volpone, or The Fox. First printed in 1616 Jonson Folio. 

Reprinted, Mermaid Jonson, vol. iii ; H. B. Wilkius, 1905. 

Discussion: L. H. Holt, "Notes on Jonson's 'Volpone,'" 

Mod. Lang. Notes, xx (1905), 63 ; F. Holthausen, " Die 

Quelle von Ben Jonson's • Volpone,' " yln^Zm, xii (1889), 

519-525. 
MiDDLETON, Thomas. (For collected editions, etc., see p. 419.) 
Blurt Master - Constable, " Or The Spaniards Night- 

walke," 1602. Reprinted, W. R. Chetwood, 1750. 
Every Woman in her Humor, 1609. Reprinted, A. H. BuUen, 

Old Plays, iv, 1885. 
Timon. MS. Printed, A. Dyce, Shakespeare Society, 1842 ; W. 
C. Hazlitt, " Shakespeare's Library," vi, 1875. Discussion: 
W. H. demons, Princeton Univ. Bulletin, 1904 ; J. Q. Adams, 
•' The Timon Plays," Jrl. Eng. and Germ. Phil., ix (1910), 
506 ff : E. H. AVright, " The Authorship of Timon of Athens," 
1910. 

B. PLATS OF CONTEMPOBAET ENGLISH LIFE 

Chapman, Jonson, and Marston : Eastward Hoe, 1605 (two 
editions). Reprinted in Dodsley, all edd. except Hazlitt ; An- 
cient British Drama, ii, 1810 ; Marston's Works, ed. Halliwell 
(1856) and Bullen (1887) ; Works of Chapman, ed. R. H. Shep- 
herd, 1874, 1889 ; F. E. Schelling, Belles Lettres series, 1904. 
Discussion: C. Edmonds, "The Original of the Hero in the 
Comedy of ' Eastward Hoe,' " Athenaeum, Oct. 13, 1883, p. 463 f ; 
H. D. Curtis, " The Source of the Petronel- Winifred Plot in 
'Eastward Hoe,'" Mod. Phil., v (1907), 105-108. 

Dekker, Thomas, and Webster, John : Westward Hoe, 
1607. Reprinted, A. Dyce, " Works of John Webster," iii, 1830. 
Northward Hoe, 1607. Reprinted ibid. Discussion : E. E. 
StoU, "John Webster," 1905; F. E. Pierce, "The Collab- 
oration of Webster and Dekker," Yale Studies, xxxvii, 1909. 



418 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

JONSON, Ben. Works, 1616 (Foliocontaining the following nine 
plays : " Every Man iu his Humor," " Every Man out of his 
Humor," "Cynthia's Revels," "Poetaster," " Sejanus," "The 
Fox," "The Silent Woman," "The Alchemist," "Catiline "). 
Reprinted, first 552 pages, W. Bang, Materialien, vii ; remain- 
der in press. Second edition adding a supplementary volume, 
containing "Bartholomew Fair," "The Devil is an Ass," 
" The Staple of News," " The Magnetic Lady," " A Tale of a 
Tub," "The Sad Shepherd," "Mortimer," 1640 (two issues). 
Third edition, 1692, adding "The New Inn." Important 
moiiern editions : P. Whalley, 1756 ; W. Gifford, 1S16 (new 
ed. 1879) ; F. Cunningham, 1875 ; H. C. Hart, 1906 ; F. E. 
Schelling, Everyman's Library. A critical edition by P. Simp- 
son is in preparation. General discussion : P. Aronstein, " Ben 
Jonson," Literarhistorische Forschungen, xxxiv, 1906 ; C. R. 
Baskervill, "English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy," 
1911; M. Castelain, "Ben Jonson: I'Homme et I'CEuvre," 
1907 ; H. Hoffschulte, " Uber Ben Jonson's iiltere Lustspiele," 
1891; F. E. Schelling, " Ben Jonson and the Classical School," 
Publ. Mixi. Lang. Assoc., xiii (1898), 221 ff ; A. C. Swinburne, 
"A Study of Ben Jonson," 1889 ; E. Woodbridge, "Studies in 
Jonson's Comedy," Yale Studies, v, 1898. 
A Tale of a Tub. First printed in vol. ii of the second Folio, 

1640. 
Every Man in his Humor. (Revised version with English 
characters.) First printed in 1616 Folio. Reprinted, J. Bell, 
British Theatre, 1776, etc. ; Mo<lern British Drama, iii, 1811; 
H. B. Wheatley, 1877, etc.; B. Nicholson, Mermaid Jonson, 
i ; W. M. Dixon, Temple Dramatists, 1896, etc. 
Every Man out of his Humor, 1600 (two editions). i?e- 
printed, W. Bang and W. W. Greg, Materialien, xvi, xvii, 
1907 ; B. Nicholson, Mermaid Jonson, i. Discussion : H. C. 
Hart : "Carlo Bnft'one in 'Every Man out of his Humour,'" 
Notes and Queries, Series x, i (191U'), 3S1-;>S3. 
The Fountain of Self-Love, or Cynthia's Revels, 1601. 
Reprinted, Mermaid Jonson, ii; A. C. Judsou, Yale Studies 
(in preparation). 
The Alchemist, 1612. (Stationer's Register, Oct. 3, 1610.) 
Reprinted 1709, 1732. 1740; Bell's British Theatre, 1777, 
etc. ; Modern British Drama, 1811 ; AV. R. Thayer, Best 



REALISTIC COMEDY 419 

Elizabethan Plays, 1892 ; B. Nicholson, Mermaid Jonson, 
iii ; C. M. Hathaway, Yale Studies, xvii, 1903 ; H. C. Hart, 
1903; F. E. Schelling, Belles Lettres series, 1904. Dis- 
cussion: F. E. Schelling, Mod. Lang. Notes, xxvi (1911), 
C2, 63. 

EpiccBne, or The Silent Woman. "Acted in the yeere ' 
1009." Registered Sept. 20, IGIO. Earliest known edition iu 
1G16 Folio. Reprinted under the second title, 1G20. Afod- 
ern editions : B. Nicholson, Mermaid Jonson, iii ; A. Henry, 
Yale Studies, xxxi, 1906. 

Bartholomew Fair. " Acted in the Years 1614." First known 
edition, with separate title-page dated 1631, included in 
second volume of Jonson's Works, 1640. Reprinted, Mermaid 
Jonson, ii ; C. S. Aldeu, Yale Studies, xxv, 1904. 

The Devil is an Asa. "Acted in the yeare 1616." First 
known edition, with separate title-page dated 1631, included 
in the second volume of Jonson's Works, 1640. Reprinted, 
W. S. Johnson, Yale Studies, xxix, 1905. Discussion : E. HoU- 
stein, "Das Verhaltnis von Ben Jonson's 'The Devil is an 
Ass,' und John Wilson's 'Belphegor' zu Machiavelli's 
' Novelle von Belfagor,' " 1901. 

The Staple of News. " Acted in the yeare 1625." Regis- 
tered 1626. First known edition, with separate title-page 
dated 1631, included in second volume of Jonson's Works, 
1640. Reprinted De Winter, Yale Studies, xxviii, 1905. 

The New Inn, 1631. Acted 1629. Reprinted third Jonson 
Folio, 1692. New ed., G. B. Tennant, Yale Studies, xxxiv, 
1908. 

The Magnetic Lady. First printed in the second Jonson 
Folio, 1640. Licensed, Oct., 1632. 
MrDDLETON, Thomas. Works ed. A. Dyce, 1840 ; Ed. A. H. 

Bullen, 1885-86. 

Michaelmas Term, 1607. 

A Trick to Catch the Old One. " Presented before his Ma- 
iestie on New yeares night last," 1008 (two issues). Re- 
printed 1616. Ed. A. C. Swinburne, Mermaid Middleton, 
vol. i. 

The Family of Love, 1608. 

A Mad "World, My Masters, 1608. Reprinted, "Ancient 
British Drama," 1810. 



420 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Your Five Gallants. Two editions without date. Registered 
March 22, 1G07. 

Porter, Hknry : The Two Angry Women of Abingdon, 
1599 (two editions). Reprinted, A. Dyce, Percy Society, v, 1841 ; 
Hazlitt's Doihley, vii, 187-i ; Mermaid series, " Nero, etc." 
1888; C. M. Gay ley, Representative English Comedies, 1903. 

Authors Unknown : Parnaasua Plays. " The Pilgrimage to 
Parnassus" and the First Part of "The Return from Parnas- 
sus," printed from a Bodleian MS. hy W. D. Macray, 1886. 
The Second Part of " The Return from Parnassus, Or The 
Scourge of Simony," printed 1006 (two editions). Also a va- 
riant MS. copy among llalliwell-Phillips's papers. Reprinted, 
T. Hawkins, Origin of the English Drama, iii, 1773 ; Ancient 
British Drama, i, 1810 ; Hazlitt's Dodsley, ix, 1874 ; E. Arber, 
1879 ; W. D. Macray (critical ed.), 1886 ; O. Smeaton, Tem- 
ple Dramatists, 1905. Discussion : B. Corney, " The Return 
from Parnassus : its authorship," Notes and Queries, Series iii, 
ix, 387; J. W. Hales, "Three Elizabethan Comedies," Mac- 
millan's Magazine, 1887 ; W. Luhr, " Die Drei Cambridger 
Spiele vom Parnass," 1900. 

Club Law. MS. in St. John's Coll., Cambridge. Printed, G. C. 
]\loore Smith, 1907. 

A Pleasant Conceited Comedy "Wherein is Shewed How 
a Man May Choose a Good Wife from a Bad, 1002. 
Other editions, 1005, 1608, 1014, 1021, 1030, 1034. Reprinted, 
" The Old English Drama," Hurst, Robinson & Co., with sep- 
arate title-page dated 1824 ; Hazlitt, Dodsley, ix, 1874. Dis- 
cussion : C. R. Baskervill, "Source and Analogues of How 
a Man May Choose a Good Wife from a Bad," Publ, Mod. 
Lang. Assoc, xxiv (1909). 

The London Prodigal, 1005. "By William Shakespeare" 
{sic). Reprinted in the third and fourth Shakespeare Folios 
(1004, 1085). For further bibliography, see The Shakespeare 
Apocrypha. 

Sir Giles Goosecap, Knight, 1606. Reprinted, A. H. Bullen, 
Old English Plays, iii, 1884 ; W. Bang and R. Brotanek, Ma- 
terialien, xxvi, 1909. Discussion : T. M. Parrott, " The Author- 
ship of Sir Gyles (looseeappe," Mod. Phil., iv (1906). (Assigns 
Tery substantial reasons for attributing the play to Chap- 
man.) 



REALISTIC COMEDY 421 

Wily Beguiled, 1G06. Later editions, 1623, 1630, 1635, 1638, 
and one other. Reprinted, T. Hawkins, Origin, iii, 1773 ; Ilaz- 
litt, Dodsley, ix. 

The Puritan, or The Widow of Watling-Street, 1607. 
" Written by W. S." Reprinted in the third and fourth Shake- 
speare Folios (1064, 1685). For further bibliography, see 
The Shakespeare Apocrypha. 



CHAPTER XII 

THK NATURE OF ELIZABETHAN DR-VMA 

TiiK moix^ important devioos of stjwciiig and of histri- 
onio praotitv which ac\HMnpaniod the development of 
the Tiidor drama np to the date of Ehziilx'th's a(.x\\«?- 
sion have Ihhmi disousstxl in the earher chapters of this 
luH^k. It remains neeessjiry — Ix^foa^ attempting to 
sketch in some sort the general spirit of the later drama 
of our jvriod — to mention briefly the external changes 
and innovations to which the theatrt^ managers re- 
sortixl during the last thirty or forty years of the 
sixteenth tvntury in their breathless effort to keep 
pacv with the unparalleU\l gRiwth in the ix>pularity 
and cv^mplexity of their \vart\s. 

We have sixMi that a distinction was clearly reivg- 
ni/.cni as earl\- as I08O IvlwiXMi the indix^r and out- 
dt.H>r iH^rformaniv of plays/ and that the interlude of 
this jH^riod develojHxl with esjxvial roganl to the neetls 
of indoor. scn\i-private and aristix^ratic presentation. 
\Vhcn Elizalvth came to the thrvnie, in 15»)S, tlve case 
wjis mueli the same. There still eo-oxisteil opon-ivir 
plays for the general public at\d indixir ivrformamvs 
for the elite. The conditions of private staging had 
gn>wn far more elalxirate, however, in the interval. 
The /tVM/<-. for which any gei\tleman's house stXMUs 
prtniouslN- to have Ixvu sutlicient, was now generally 
•tixtxi in one of the royal palatvs of Whitehall or Gretni- 
wich, in the grvwt dining halls of the Oxford and Cam- 
> tkx p. 69 £. 



THE NATURE OF ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 423 

bridge colh^gcs or the London Inns ol' (\)urt, or occa- 
sionally at the n^sidencc of some great noble. The 
ac(;ounts of the Revels Office bear clear witness to the 
constantly incr(»asing gorgeousness and exJ)ensiven(^ss 
of such entertainments.' Kach decade saw enormously 
amplified the requisition of money and properties to 
adorn the stage or dress the performers, and the waste- 
ful tendency exhausted itself finally only in the wild 
crushing extravagance of the Jacobean masque. The 
luMghtened re])ute of i)rivate tluvitricals is likewise 
indicated by the rise of comi)anies of amateur per- 
formers by the side of the old i)rofessional bands. 
Such seem to have been ordinarily the actors in the 
collegiate plays, and so the various children's com- 
panies of choir-boys should doubtless be considered 
during all the first part of tiie reign. Through the 
entire quarter century following the Queen's acces- 
sion all that was most significant or i)rogressive in 
Knglish drama expressed itself in these private and 
occasional performances. Practically every imf)ortant 
play of this time — "Ferrex and Porrex," "Roister 
Doister," "Gammer Gurton's Needle," "The Sup- 
po.ses" and "Jocasta," "(Jismond of Salerne," "The 
Misfortunes of Arthur," "The Arraignment of Paris," 
and the early comedies of Lyly — appeared to meet 
the growing needs and as|)irations of the indoor stage. 
The i)0[)ular, outdoor theatre, on the other hand, 
remained for many years after Elizabeth's accession 
on tlie same low level of development which we have 
foimd illustrated a full century l)efore in the mi.ic en 
schne of the vulgarized morality, "Mankind." The 

* Cf. A. J. Kerapc, Lonelcy MSS., and A. Feuillerat, Rcveb' 
Accounts, passim. 



424 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

professional actors, all the most reputable of whom 
reserved their best efforts for private exhibition in the 
presence of noble or royal patrons, were indeed con- 
tent to increase their profits by such performances 
before the rabble as could be arranged without special 
preparation or outlay. But nearly twenty years of the 
Queen's reign passed before the appearance of any 
disposition to consider the particular requirements and 
opportunities of the popular stage. In the mean time, 
the public was offered casual amusement in the open- 
air theatres which chance had provided, and which we 
have found the rustic mountebanks of "Mankind" 
already employing, — namely, in the uncovered court- 
yards of the inns. The assemblages here collected were 
regaled either with the rudest effusions of traditional 
clownage and melodrama, or else with the leavings 
of the more cultured audiences, — plays intended dis- 
tinctly for private presentation, which the actors hap- 
pened to have already in their repertoire or which 
they desired to rehearse in view of some contemplated 
private performance. Thus it happens that, while the 
fashionable private drama is found making continu- 
ous and serious, if not always successful, effort at 
artistic improvement, the career of the popular stage 
remains till about 1585 a practical blank; and the na- 
tional drama bursts forth into immediate and unher- 
alded bloom only when the great events of the last 
years of the eighties had caused a fusion between the 
interests of the public and private stages. 

The reason for the earlier backwardness of the drama 
of the people is very largely sociological, an outgrowth 
of the peculiar status of the actor. The relation of the 
Tudor government, uninfluenced by Puritanical bias. 




YARD OF THE FOUR SWANS INN, BISHOPSGATE 

Illustrating the usual scene of popular dramatic performances before 1575 



THE NATURE OF ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 425 

toward professional entertainers is well indicated by 
the phraseology of a letter from the Lord Mayor of 
London to the Lord Chancellor/ in which the writer 
reminds his lordship " that the players of playes which 
are vsed at the Theatre and other such places and 
tumblers and such like, are a very superfluous sort 
of men, and of suche facultie as the lawes haue dis- 
alowed." The disallowance of the laws during the 
earlier part of the reign arose, thus, not from moral 
considerations, but from the " super fluousness" of the 
class of actors; i. e., their lack of social responsibility, 
and the difficulty of fitting them closely into that care- 
ful gradation of rank and mutual dependence which 
Tudor policy regarded as the only safeguard against 
riot and sedition. It was this feeling which prompted 
the statutes of 14 and 39 Elizabeth (1571, 1596), re- 
quiring "all Fencers, Bearewardes, comon Players of 
Enterludes and Minstrelles wandring abroade " on 
j5ain of prosecution as vagabonds, to secure the pat- 
ronage of some member of the nobility and thus sub- 
ject themselves to more or less effectual control.^ 
In their legal consequences these laws were, indeed, of 
far less importance than it has been usual to believe 
them. They merely sought to universalize a connec- 
tion which had been very frequent since before the be- 
ginning of the Tudor period, and it is unreasonable 
to infer that they entirely succeeded in their purpose. 
On the contrary, the very reenactment of the statute 
in more stringent form would rather indicate, like the 

^ Dated April 12, 1580. Reprinted in "The Remembrancia," 
Malone Society " Collections," i, 46. 

^ For the text of these statutes, see W. C. Uazlitt, The English 
Drama and Stage, 18C9, 21-23, 37 f. 



426 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

repeated prohibition of plays by the mediaeval church, 
that the abuse continued. Outside the policed dis- 
tricts of London, if not within them, it is probable that 
unlicensed actors, as well as "sturdy beggars" and 
vagabonds of other kinds maintained among the 
lower classes their illegal traffic. 

In its bearing upon the history of the stage, the atti- 
tude of the government was, however, decidedly im- 
portant. On the one hand, by discrediting all players 
not directly connected with the nobility, it necessarily 
limited the activities of the boycotted class to crude 
and surreptitious performance, and so made the evo- 
lution of a serious popular drama from this source im- 
possible. On the other hand, these laws, together with 
the increasing opposition of the London corporation, 
greatly enhanced the value to the privileged companies 
of their relation to their noble patrons, and for a very 
considerable period caused them to regard the satis- 
faction of popular audiences as a matter altogether 
subsidiary to their continuance in favor and reputa- 
tion before the courtly circle, for whose applause, 
moreover, they were obliged to compete keenly with 
the entirely private bands of amateurs. 

That the bond between the patron and the public 
entertainers under his protection was throughout 
Elizabeth's reign, and particularly during the first 
thirty years of it, something considerably stronger 
than the legal fiction which it has been called ^ is indi- 
cated by several kinds of evidence: for example, by 
the intimate connection of the various Lords Cham- 
berlain with their respective companies; ^ and by 

* See F. E. Schelling, Elizabethan Drama, i, 143. 

* See E. K. Chambers, "The Elizabethan Lords Chamberlain," 
Malone Society "Collections," i, 31 ff. 



THE NATURE OF ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 427 

Leicester's recommendation to the Earl of Shrewsbury, 
Lord President of the North, of his "servauntes — 
plaiers of interludes," for whom he requests, in Jllne, 
1559, liberty of performing in Yorkshire, "being 
honest men, and suche as shall plaie none other mat- 
ters (I trust) but tollerable and convenient, whereof 
some of them have bene herde here (i. e., at West- 
minster) alreadie before diverse of my Lordis." ^ A 
like intimate relation is suggested by Leicester's per- 
sonal accompaniment of his players to Germany in 
1585, and by the very frank and spirited letter written 
by Leicester's brother, the Earl of Warwick (July 23, 
1582) to the Lord Mayor in behalf of his "servant," 
John David, a professional master of defence, alleged 
to have been discriminated against in his purpose of 
giving a public exhibition at the Bull in Bishopsgate.^ 
The earliest indication of a tendency on the part of 
the professional actors to put the public performance 
of plays on a commercial basis, and thus to distinguish 
their popular exhibitions from the unorganized and 
casual shows of the tumblers, bearwards, fencers, and 
minstrels with whom it was usual to class them, 
appears about 1575 in the erection of the first build- 
ings designed particularly for dramatic entertainment. 
A sermon preached at Paul's Cross by one Thomas 
White, December 9, 1576, denounces the "sumptuous 
theatre houses, a continual monument of London's 
prodigality and folly," and the distinctive names of 
the original playhouses, The Theatre and The Curtain, 
are mentioned both by John Northbrook in his Trea- 

^ Quoted by Collier, Introduction to Northbrook's Treatise;, 
Shakespeare Society, 1843, p. vii. 
* Cf. Remembrancia, 55-58. 



428 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

tise against "Dicing, Dauncing, Vaine playes, or En- 
terluds, with other idle pastimes," licensed in 1577, 
and 'in a sermon delivered by John Stockwood in 
1578.1 

The construction of these edifices, built in close 
proximity in Shoreditch, just outside the sphere of 
influence of the hostile London Council, marks an 
advance in the development of the popular theatre 
which is more striking on the economic than on the 
architectural side. The lines followed by the builders 
were substantially those of the old inn-yard, with its 
interior balconies, unfloored pavement, and open roof; 
and only little effort was made, so far as we can as- 
certain, to emulate the greater sumptuousness and 
convenience of the indoor private theatre. Thus, 
the ancient tradition of outdoor representation, the 
arrangements for placing the various classes of the 
audience, and all the characteristic devices of stage 
practice, remained practically unaltered. The build- 
ing of the Theatre and Curtain is mainly significant, 
because it proves the great growth in public interest 
in drama, which the literature of the time everywhere 
attests, and because it shows on the part of the actors 
a correspondingly increased attention to the popular 
exercise of their profession. Henceforth, the per- 
formance of plays before the multitude was a business 
prosecuted, not carelessly and at hap-hazard, but as 
a permanent career and at the expense of considerable 
outlay by astute men of affairs like James Burbage, 
leader of Leicester's company and builder of the 

* See Collier's Introduction to Northbrook's Treatise, and E. N. 
S. Thompson, Controversy between the Puritans and the Stage, 1903, 
103 £. 



THE NATURE OF ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 429 

Theatre. Under these conditions, it was not long 
before the profits incident to the public staging of plays 
became so large as to raise to notable affluence a great 
number of stockholder-actors like Shakespeare, Alleyn, 
and the younger Burbage, and even to attract the 
cupidity of speculators originally unconnected with 
the profession. The best instance of the latter class is, 
of course, the illiterate but shrewd Philip Henslowe, 
builder of the third public theatre, the Rose,^ and long 
the most energetic rival of Shakespeare in practical 
matters. 

It is not to be supposed that the newer theatres 
entirely supplanted the inn-yard as the scene of popu- 
lar dramatic performance at any time during the life 
of Elizabeth. It was the Cross Keys Inn in Grace- 
church Street which in 1589 harbored Lord Strange's 
Men and thus inaugurated the career, as it would 
seem, of the greatest of all the London companies, — 
that of Shakespeare.^ Such inns continued till after 
the accession of James I to furnish the regular acting 
place for smaller companies, and even occasionally to 
accommodate the greatest and most flourishing, when 
such accidents as fire, plague, or civic opposition de- 
prived them of more ambitious stages. And, though 
the regular theatres developed enormously in seating 
capacity and magnificence after 1590, receiving in 
some cases gorgeous interior adornment, it was prob- 
ably long before they produced any essential innova- 
tion in method or capability of stage presentation. 
The practical superiority of Shakespeare's Globe over 

^ The date at which the Rose was 6rst opened as a theatre ranges 
between 1587 and 1592. Cf. W. W. Greg, Henslowe' s Diary, ii, 44. 
» Ihid'., 72, 73. 



430 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

the contemporary inn-yard we may assume to have 
been less a matter of dramatic effectiveness than of 
size and regular business control. 

Nor did the rise of separate theatres succeed in 
entirely distinguishing play-acting from the other 
forms of popular entertainment with which it had 
formerly been associated. Lord Strange's company 
appears to have had its humble origin in a band of bey 
tumblers first mentioned as performing at court in 
1580.^ The usual end of declining theatres was em- 
ployment as the scene for fencing and acrobatic exhi- 
bitions; and the prudent Henslowe constructed a 
building, as late as 1613, which could be used at will 
for bear-baiting or acting, and which, after having 
seen the original production of "Bartholomew Fair," 
was soon given over entirely to the more vulgar amuse- 
ment, ^ 

The details of Elizabethan staging are largely ob- 
scure, and probably not wholly susceptible of explana- 
tion; but the main principles and the general effects 
produced are now hardly doubtful. It is likely that 
the crudities and inconsistencies of presentation have 
been considerably over-emphasized. Certainly, a good 
deal of progress in practical stagecraft was made dur- 
ing the last decades of the century, and the absurd- 
ities ridiculed by Sidney in 1580 cannot be safely 
predicated of the theatre of 1600. The stage itself 
seems to have been of generous size both in the inn- 
yard and in the regular playhouse. In Henslowe's 
Fortune — perhaps the largest of the Elizabethan 
buildings — 43 feet by 40, out of a total ground area 

^ Henslowe s Diary, ii, 71. 

2 The "Hope" Theatre. See Greg, loc. cit., 66-68.' 



THE NATURE OF ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 431 

of 80 feet square, were set apart for the stage and 
"tiring-house." ^ 

Three divisions of the stage must be recognized : an 
outer and an inner (or a forward and rear) portion, 
which might be separated by a curtain, and a balcony 
raised above the inner stage. ^ The precise position and 
number of curtains, and the arrangement of the doors 
leading from the tiring-house behind the stage, are 
questions in dispute, and perhaps differed in the vari- 
ous theatres. The main use of the balcony was to in- 
dicate distance between the speakers. It might repre- 
sent the walls of a besieged city, a lady's chamber, or 
the scaffolding of Barabas's caldron. 

A great deal of the confusion prevalent in regard to 
the mise en scene of Elizabethan plays is probably due 
to the failure to discriminate between the practice of 
the popular theatres and that observed in private per- 
formances. In the latter case the stage was ordinarily a 
temporary platform erected at the end of the hall used 
for the presentation, and necessarily removed, of 
course when the hall was restored to its normal func- 
tion.^ Thus, till the influence of popular procedure 

* On the shape of the Elizabethan stage, see my article in the 
New York Nation, Dec., 1910. 

^ Probably the best discussion of Elizabethan staging is con- 
tained in V. E. Albright's Shaksperian Stage, 1909, which supplies 
also a criticism of the rival dissertations of C. Brodmeier (1904); 
G. F. Reynolds, 1905; and R. Wegener, 1907. A general survey of 
the subject and an excellent bibliography will be found in the Cam- 
bridge History of Eng. Lit., vi, ch. x. 

3 In illustration of the flimsy nature of the stage architecture in 
private performances, see the account of the fatal accident which 
occurred when Edwards's lost Palemon and Arcite was acted before 
Queen Elizabeth in Christ Church hall, Oxford (1566). Nicholls, 
Progresses of Elizabeth, 1823, 210-213. 



432 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

and the growing tendency to prodigality in indoor 
theatricals began to prepare the way for the extrava- 
gance of Inigo Jones and tlie other great Stuart archi- 
tects of the private stage, the court and college dramas 
seem to have been produced upon a slight elevated 
flooring concealed by a single curtain or by none. We 
find, therefore, that the interludes, the early imitations 
of Latin drama, and the court comedies of Lyly — all 
intended for indoor performance — either make no 
effort at visualizing scene, or adhere to the constant 
Roman i)racticc of a street before several houses, 
or else resort to such childish devices for indicating 
change of place as the pushing of Diogenes's tub on 
and off the stage in full view of the spectators. 

These im])crfections of the private theatre should 
not be permitted to obscure one's realization that, by 
the last decade of the century, the public stage had 
comparatively satisfactory means of suggesting change 
of localily, and even of creating dramatic illusion, in 
the permanent threefold division mentioned above. 
An invariable i)ractice cannot safely be assumed, but it 
is highly probable that verisimilitude was obtained to 
a large degree by a somewhat regular alternation be- 
tween scenes acted on the outer portion only of the 
lower stage and scenes in which the inner portion also 
was exposed. The balcony above could be separately 
screened when not required, and it might be uised in 
connection with cither the outer or the entire lower 
stage. The inner stage seems often to have been 
rather elaborately tlecoratcd and to have contained 
a consiilcrablc amount of furniture. The outer divi- 
sion, on the other hand, we may imagine to have been 
totally, or almost totally, bare, and it was probably 




Tni.i;-rA(iK ov n. kiciiauhs's 

"TUAUKDY OK MESSALLINA," 1G40 

Acted by the Coinpsiny of his Majesty's Revels. 
With sketch of stage and actors 



THE NATURE OF ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 433 

used for indefinitely located scenes requiring space for 
relatively few actors. All Elizabethan dramas abound 
in brief scenes of monologue or casual conversation, in 
which the chorus, hero or villain, a couple of court 
gentlemen, or a knot of clowns occupy the attention of 
the audience in the intervals between weightier scenes 
involving a great number of figures and demanding 
clear localization. In many of these cases, it is hard to 
avoid the conclusion that the slighter passage was 
particularly devised for the purpose of beguiling the 
time, while behind the drawn intermediate curtain, 
the rear stage was being decorated.^ By some such 
method as this, we may be sure, changes of place were 
marked without that tedious period of blank expect- 
ancy between the scenes which no Elizabethan audi- 
ence would ever have endured, and which becomes 
possible even in the modern theatre only when the 
number of changes is greatly reduced. 

It is certain that the Elizabethan popular theatre 
made use of numerous stage properties and attempted, 
according to its standards, a considerably more real- 
istic imitation of life than seems often to be imagined. 
Frank anachronism, of course, must be conceded, both 
in the dress of the actors and in scenic decoration. 
Apart, however, from this failure to distinguish be- 
tween the fashions of the ages, the dramatists and 
managers were undoubtedly fully aware of the pic- 
torial limitations of their staging, and eager to heighten 
the illusion of the spectators. Though the bulk of the 
expense of setting out a play went in purchase of cos- 

^ Cf. The Puritan, III, Hi, iv. See also A. H. Tolman, "Alter- 
nation in the Staging of Shakespeare's Plays," Mod. Phil., vi (1909), 
517 ff. 



434 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

tumes for the performers, Henslowe's lists of expendi- 
tures are in themselves sufficient evidence of the atten- 
tion paid to scenic furnishings; and everything we 
know of the procedure of the day emphasizes the fal- 
lacy of assuming for the theatre of Shakespeare's time 
a smaller regard for pictorial effect than can be clearly 
proved for the performances of the mystery cycles two 
centuries before. Practicable furniture of many kinds 
— trees that could be climbed or lopped off, hedges and 
arrases that would really conceal — did undoubtedly 
exist, and could certainly be replaced by other fittings 
when change of scene rendered them glaringly out of 
keeping. 

Of scenery in the modern sense there can hardly be 
a question; but painted cloths may have been used 
somewhat ambitiously to suggest buildings, or even 
landscape, — particularly perhaps in connection with 
the upper balcony stage. The boards hung up to pro- 
claim the scene of action, and occasionally the title 
of the play as well, were merely the equivalent of the 
modern theatre programme, and cannot be regarded 
as in any sense a substitute or alternative for visual 
scenery. 

Altogether, the numerous plays printed directly 
from the prompter's copies used in the theatres, and 
such documents as "Henslowe's Diary" and the re- 
cords of eye-witnesses of performances bear out inher- 
ent probability in showing the stage of 1600 to have 
been unusually plastic and inventive in its solution 
of the external problems of presentation, and not indif- 
ferent — as it has sometimes been held — but sensitive 
in the highest degree to the real capabilities of stage 
business and scenic effect. 



;-'\ 



THE NATURE OF ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 435 

The external development of the EHzabethan the- 
atre, with which we have just been concerned, was 
influenced at several points by the course of critical 
opinion regarding the drama. We have seen how the 
governmental regulation of player companies, by 
checking the free evolution of a vulgar democratic 
stage, kept the popular drama for a time in subjection 
to the interests of private aristocratic performance, 
but ended by enriching the former with the heritage of 
experiment and innovation which the learned writers 
for the private stage had accumulated. Thus the pub- 
lic theatre of 1590 acquired a breadth of scope and a 
universal adaptability impossible to a purely indige- 
nous plebeian growth. In addition to this influence of 
practical policy, two great waves of formal contro- 
versy, which came to a head during the reign of Eliza- 
beth, left their mark upon the drama as upon other 
species of literature. 

The first of these forces was the all-embracing tide 
of Puritan philosophy, which, beginning in a more or 
less academic and impartial query concerning the 
justification of ornamental art in general, directed its 
arraignment not only against the stage, but against 
practically all poetry and fiction, music, and dancing. 
This attitude of mind, voiced in its mildest aspect by 
Ascham, repeats itself in slightly more specialized form 
in the works of Northbrook and Gosson, — the earli- 
est important antagonists of the theatre, — and finds 
a response equally catholic and far-reaching in Sid- 
ney's noble "Apologie for Poetrie." However, in the 
heat of the quarrel thus punctiliously opened, atten- 
tion concentrated itself more and more upon the most 
concrete object of dispute: the contemporary stage. 



436 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

The growing force of anti-dramatic prejudice, strong 
enough from the start to prevent the erection of the- 
atres within the Umits of London municipal control 
and very seriously to hamper even irregular inn-yard 
performances in the same district, succeeded during 
the Stuart period in depriving the drama first of its 
chief right to live, and then, for a space, of all open 
existence.^ 

The other great critical dispute, only less universal 
in its issues than that occasioned by the rise of the 
Puritan attitude, likewise affected the drama at first 
merely as one of the branches of creative poetry. This 
controversy, taking its origin from the Renaissance, as 
the other arose from the Reformation, sought a final 
permanent settlement for all questions of literary 
standard and artistic form. The proposition debated 
was in effect this : Granted once that imaginative litera- 
ture had a moral claim to existence, should it find its 
expression in the ev.er changing patterns evolved from 
time to time by contemporary taste, or could it dis- 
cover in classic usage stylistic and structural models of 
universal application ? In a conflict waged thus over 
the whole field of poetic practice, it is hardly surpris- 
ing that the opposing lines became sometimes curi- 
ously confused. Thus, Spenser and Campion — two 
of the most graceful expositors of the romantic capa- 
bilities of English verse, and both special masters of 
rhythmic effect — became conspicuous assailants of 
the " barbarousness " of rime, and defenders of the 
ungainly and rasping imitations of classic metre. On 

* It should be remembered, however, that surreptitious dramatic 
performances were never absolutely abolished during the era of 
Puritan control. 



THE NATURE OF ELIZABETIUN DRAMA 437 

the other side, Daniel, the most distinguished stickler 
for chissic regularity in the drama, delivered the final 
decisive blow in defence of the general romantic con- 
tention in his eloquent and unanswerable "Defence 
of Rime." 

As far as the theatre was concerned, this dispute 
tended to resolve itself into an opposition, probably 
not clearly recognized at first, between the private 
stage, strongly inclined to classic uniformity and regu- 
larity, and the popular drama, which grew increasingly 
romantic and irregular as it grew more independent. 
The issue of the controversy can be traced through 
the previous chapters in the gradual decline of the 
drama of Latin imitation and the development of the 
various national, "romantic" types. The period at 
which the result was decided appears from the fact 
that Sir Philip Sidney, writing his "Apology for 
Poetry" about 1580, pronounces strongly — and con- 
sidering the state of the English theatre at the time, 
undoubtedly justly — in favor of plays built on classic 
lines. Ten years later, however, the romantic popular 
type had so completely outstripped competition that 
adherence to classic rule continues to show itself only 
in dramatic freaks and "sports,'Mike the effusions of 
the Countess of Pembroke's school, or in unsuccessful 
efforts at compromise between the two methods such as 
Jonson's Roman tragedies. 

Thus the purely literary controversy between classi- 
cism and romanticism settled itself within the limits of 
time to which our study has been restricted with as 
much finality as such critical uncertainties can ever 
reach. The other broader issue, involved in the Puri- 
tan hostility to the stage, was protracted far into the 



438 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

Stuart period, and any proper understanding of its 
vital consequences requires a careful review of the 
general progress of pre-Restoration drama in England. 
Such a review will perhaps make clear also the essential 
nature of the Elizabethan drama and the fundamental 
differences which distinguish it from that of the suc- 
ceeding age. 

The late Mr. J. A. Symonds has written a well- 
known essay ^ "On the Drama of Elizabeth and James 
considered as the main product of the Renaissance in 
England." The dependence of the Elizabethan drama 
on the Renaissance is, of course, a commonplace every- 
where acknowledged and so oft reiterated that it has 
almost ceased to appear a commonplace, and has come 
to be accepted as an article of unreasoning faith. To 
recognize the connection, however, is to do little more 
than admit that a great imaginative upheaval has 
produced great imaginative results. We are little 
nearer than before to the answer to the question of 
real importance; namely, just what these results were, 
and exactly in what manner they were displaj^ed. 

That strange literary product, the drama of the 
Tudor and Jacobean age, can best be likened, perhaps, 
by a rather homely comparison, to the seed-pod of 
some leguminous plant. Starting from the slender 
promise of the stem, it grows with a fecundity be- 
yond explanation, through imperfect or stunted pro- 
ducts to the large girth and richness of the centre. 
Then, as if the life-giving power were gradually with- 
drawn, it becomes ever narrower and more restricted, 
till it ends in sheer abortion. Those who attempt the 

^ Printed as General Introduction to the Mermaid edition of 
Marlowe. 



THE NATURE OF ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 439 

study of such an organism from a cross section through 
the middle — as is commonly the method in litera- 
ture — are confounded by the number, the variety, 
and the mutual unlikeness of the cells. It is better 
that one endeavor first to discover the few genital ele- 
ments whose presence creates all the diverse mani- 
festations of maturity, and whose absence transforms 
maturity into decay. 

That some such causes exist for the brilliant bloom 
of Elizabethan drama and its subsequent degenera- 
tion admits of no doubt. The accident of individual 
genius by no means accounts sufficiently for the phe- 
nomena. But we shall probably never be able to lay 
these causes completely bare, and to estimate the pre- 
cise importance of each. There appear, however, two 
considerations, which, if they did not completely con- 
trol the progress of pre-Restoration drama, are at 
least closely correlated with its rise, flourishing, and 
decline. They are: first, the relation of the drama at 
different stages to religious feeling; and, second, its 
relation to the personal life and the political views of 
its age. 

From the time of the English Renaissance — about 
the time, let us say, of Skelton's "Magnificence" — 
to the period of Elizabeth's accession, the drama had 
been gradually working itself away from the religious 
tendencies of medisevalism and in the direction of 
vulgar comedy. The movement was quite natural, 
and its first beginnings long antedate the period I have 
mentioned. It was not carried out, however, entirely 
without a check, because the English Reformation 
and the theological disputes it engendered gave to 
religion for a time a particular dramatic interest. Thus, 



440 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

we find a kind of recrudescence of the clerical element 
in the work of the Protestant zealot, Bishop Bale, and 
the authors of "New Custom" and "King Darius," 
and in the strongly anti-reformatory play of "Respub- 
lica." These controversial pieces, however, stand by 
themselves, and perhaps had but little influence on 
general taste and procedure. By the time the real 
Elizabethan drama was inaugurated in the earliest 
works of Peele, Kyd, and Marlowe, the stage had com- 
pletely enfranchised itself from definitely ecclesiastical 
tendencies. 

In general, the drama would appear to have main- 
tained a position of neutrality on the subject of reli- 
gion, though certainly not without occasional lapses 
into polemics, from about 1585 till the death of 
Elizabeth. The greatest and sanest work of this period 
stands free, as it ought to do, both of religious coloring 
and of theological dispute. But already a strong reflex 
movement had begun. No sooner had the theatre 
emancipated itself from vassalage to the ancient, 
church than it was threatened with total annihilation 
by the newborn forces of Puritanism. The Puritan 
attack had begun, as has been seen, very early in Eliza- 
beth's reign, and it manifested itself in at least two 
ways: in constant opposition to theatres and things 
theatrical on the part of the representatives of middle- 
class respectability; and in formal public denuncia- 
tions like Northbrook's Treatise and Stephen Gos- 
son's "School of Abuse," published as early as 1577 
and 1579 respectively. Of such pamphlets there was 
indeed no end; they increased in virulence and in 
number as the century declined and the next century 
began. Among the host may be mentioned Thomas 



THE NATURE OF ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 441 

Beard's "Theatre of God's Judgments," 1598, which 
after passing through several editions, was recast by 
another hand and brought out under a title savoring no 
less than the first of sulphur and brimstone, "The 
Theatre of God's Judgments" being heightened into 
"The Thunderbolt of God's Wrath." Another ex- 
pression of the same attitude is William Vaughan's 
"Golden Grove," first printed in 1600 and reedited in 
1608. The sixty-sixth chapter of the second edition 
of this work proposes the question, "Whether Stage 
playes ought to be suffred in a Common- wealth," and 
pi-oceeds to answer it most emphatically in the nega- 
tive. 

For a time, as we have said, the greater Elizabethan 
dramatists held their course, unaffected by the Puri- 
tan onslaughts; biit this could not long continue to be 
the case. Players and playwrights, having had the 
position of pariahs forced upon them, gradually ac- 
commodated their lives and writings to the character. 
Offences originally casual became conscious and dis- 
proportioned. What had been no more than the 
necessary dark shading in the picture of actual life 
was dwelt upon till the whole effect grew morbid and 
ugly. There can be no doubt that the blame for this 
rests rather with Puritanism than with the drama. 
It was quite impossible for the latter long to ignore the 
hue and cry that was raised against it, and submission 
to Puritan dictation meant nothing short of absolute 
extinction. There was no choice but avowed hostility. 
The gauntlet so often thrown down by the opposite 
party must at length be taken up, though by that act 
the drama sealed its doom. Henceforth, its two chief 
elements of greatness were vanished. From being the 



442 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

voice of a great nation undivided, it must descend to 
the place of mouthpiece to a particular faction; and 
with its representative character it lost also its im- 
partiality of vision. It could no longer depict life as 
life really was: the poison spot of anti-Puritan bitter- 
ness soon spread so as to infect the whole body and 
sour its whole judgment of men and manners. 

The year in which Elizabeth died — 1603 — is in a 
number of ways a convenient landmark in the progress 
of dramatic history. It is about this time that the 
drama begins to grow conscious of the break with the 
forces of religion and morality. Already in Shake- 
speare's later work there are uneasy allusions to 
Brownists and Precisians. In plays like "Eastward 
Hoe" (1605), "The Puritan" (1607), and "Bartholo- 
mew Fair" (1614), the antagonism is acknowledged, 
but it is not yet too bitter to furnish matter for jest. 
Ridicule, however, even in the skilful hands of Ben 
Jonson and Marston, collapsed like a wall of sand 
before the advancing tide of Puritanism. The genera- 
tion which began with the production of "Measure for 
Measure" and "Eastward Hoe" saw the drama slowly 
driven from its position. Little by little, the ground 
of sober reason and reality crumbled under its feet, 
till it slipped almost unawares into the bog of motive- 
less ribaldry. During the last phase — to speak 
roughly, during the Caroline epoch — English drama 
is no longer what it had successively been, either the 
coadjutor, or the compeer, or the jealous rival, or the 
desperate assailant of Religion. It has forfeited all 
claim to consideration as a moral and ethical force, 
has accepted the brand of vagabondage, and is con- 
tent to make its appeal to moral outcasts. 



THE NATURE OF ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 443 

It was for this reason that Stuart drama faded and 
decayed, rather than from any of the more usual 
causes of literary decline. The interesting and on many 
accounts marvellously attractive work of that period 
— the work of Fletcher and Middleton, Massinger 
and Shirley — displays assuredly no lack of imagina- 
tive brilliance or poetic beauty. In richness of color- 
ing and skill of plot construction it rivals the highest 
achievement of the true Elizabethans. The form is 
there in almost undiminished splendor; it is the 
healthy spirit, the sane and comprehensive grasp of 
life, which is missing. Something of this sort is what 
Professor Dowden means by the following paragraph 
from his book, "Puritan and Anglican": ^ — 

"The chief glory of Elizabethan literature was the 
drama, with the deepest passion and the most heroic 
actions of humanity for its theme. It had its basis in 
what is most real in the life of man, and what is real 
was interpreted into the highest meanings by imagina- 
tion. During the latter years of the reign of James I 
and during the reign of Charles the drama lost touch 
with reality; it was cut off from its true basis of supply. 
It advanced with a showy gallantry, but its strength 
and solidity of movement were gone. It relied too 
often, as with Massinger and Fletcher, on overstrained, 
fantastic motives. It deserted the substantial ground 
of national history. It endeavoured to excite a jaded 
imagination with extravagances of romantic passion 
or even of unnatural lust. It sought for curiosities of 
prettiness in sentiment and imagery. It supported its 
decline by splendors appealing to the senses; vast sums 

1 Pages 2, 3. 



444 THE TUDOR DRAMA 

of money were expended upon the masque. It grew 
shallow in true passion and meditative wisdom. It grew 
rhetorical; its moralities are often those of eloquent 
periods. And if at times less rudely gross th^n the 
earlier drama, it was infected ^with a subtler and a 
baser spirit of evil." 

The words quoted, like much of what has just been 
said in discussing the attitude of the drama toward 
moral tendencies, have an application which extends 
far beyond the limits of religion or of ethics. During 
the age of which we are treating, dramatic literature 
and established religion were infinitely more than the 
narrowly defined and essentially unrelated phenomena 
they are at present. Each had potentially, at least, if 
not in actuality, a scope so enormous as to include 
within itself the entire social, political, and intellectual 
import of the national life: and that would probably 
be no very distorted conception of history which 
should regard the Elizabethan impulse toward dra- 
matic self-expression and the great Puritan movement 
as the protagonists in a struggle, where the prize of 
victory was nothing less than the power of shaping 
the ideals and interests of the English people. 

The discussion, therefore, of the gradual overthrow 
of the Elizabethan drama as an ethical force links 
itself naturally with what I have referred to as the 
second great cause of the drama's decline: its gradual 
divorce from the serious concerns of contemporary 
life. The gain of Puritanism was here also the loss of 
the drama; and the latter was deprived of its very 
blood and brawn when the spirit of the age came to be 
expressed no longer through it, but through the lit- 
erary work of Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, and Milton, 



THE NATURE OF ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 445 

and the political personalities of Hampden, Selden, 
and Cromwell. 

During the interval between 1603 and 1642 the 
drama underwent a sort of desiccation; it lost its sap 
and freshness. The milk of human kindness and 
catholic sympathy, which keeps the work of Eliza- 
beth's reign sweet in spite of all its outspoken coarse- 
ness, was soured first into cynicism and at length com- 
pletely evaporated, leaving nothing behind but a 
dried and hollow shell. The first stage of the change is 
found in the plays of Webster, Tourneur, and Ford. 
Here is as yet no coldness or lack of vitality, surely; 
but the warmth is that of fever rather than health. 
The connection with genuine English life and feeling 
has been broken, once for all. Neither in the individual 
characters nor in the general spirit which informs such 
plays as "Vittoria Corombona," "The Revenger's 
Tragedy," and "The Broken Heart," is there much 
suggestion of the real seventeenth-century England. 
Throughout, one finds the stale and acrid flavor of 
decadent Italianism, consciously imported and mor- 
bidly emphasized. In its general tendencies, indeed, 
and in its fundamental character, this school of drama 
is no longer English; it is "Italianate" in the full de- 
rogatory sense in which Roger Ascham employs the 
term,^ and to a much more harmful degree than any 
literary force of Aschara's day could possibly have 
been. 

The fierce flame of unnatural passion which lends 
heat and brilliance to the plays of Webster and Ford 
was necessarily short-lived: it was but the last wild 

1 See The Scholemaster, ed. Arber, English Reprints, 1870, 77- 
81. 



446 THE TUDOR DRAIVIA 

guttering that preceded extinction, and it consumed 
in its sudden blaze the final remnants of dramatic fuel. 
By its ignoring of the ordinary human interests, Ja- 
cobean tragedy had already squandered the principal 
resource upon which its continuance depended. After 
Ford, there was no psychological abnormity, no im- 
aginable depth of misery or excess of half-crazed pas- 
sion, which could stimulate any longer dramatic atten- 
tion. We have the inevitable result in much of the 
work of Glapthorne and Shirley. The drama is but a 
polished crust, void of psychical interest and philo- 
sophic import. It has but two dimensions: there is 
no depth to it. If we attempt to probe the hearts of the 
characters, to search beneath the cut and thrust of the 
dialogue and the orderly procession of incident for 
the organic life that inspires the whole, we find little 
but dead dust and putrefaction. 

The main cause, therefore, why the English drama 
of the reigns of James I and Charles I steadily de- 
clined, and finally came near to death, is not to be dis- 
covered in the hostility of the law-makers or the dis- 
turbances of civil war, though these forces, naturally, 
contributed in some measure. The main reason is the 
fact that the Stuart drama came by successive stages, 
the first of which dates from very early in the reign of 
James, to represent almost the complete negation of 
those qualities of nationalism and responsiveness to 
the waves of popular feeling, which gave the drama of 
Elizabeth its exuberant vigor and its wonderful com- 
plexity. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



(Individual plays are entered separately according to their titles, rather 
than under the names of authors. Wherever the authorship is deter- 
mined, the writer's name follows the title of the play. Numerals printed in 
italic refer to bibliographical sections of the book; those printed in fuU- 
faced type indicate formal discussions of the subject indexed.) 



"ABR.iHAM's S.^cp.iFiCE," play of, in 
Brome MS. Ste "Brome"; in Dub- 
lin MS. See "Dublin"; translated 
from French by A. Golding, 133, 
144- 

"Acolastus," 124, note. 

Adams, J. Q., 96, note; i02. S94, 417. 

iElian, 173. 

.(Eschylus, 326. 

".iEthiopica" (.Ethiopian History), 
by Heliodorus, 259 /., 261. 

"Alaham" (Fulke Greville), 201, £26. 

"Albion Knight." 109, 143. 

Albright, V. E., 33, note; 431, note 2. 

" Albumazar" (T. Tomkis), 169. 

"Alchemist, The" (Ben. Jonson), 
152, 169, 1S4, 402, 418 /. 

Alexander, Sir William, Earl of Stir- 
ling, 201, 202, eS6. 

"Alexandrsean, The" (Sir William 
Alexander), 201. 

Alleyn, E., 58, 429. 

"All Fools" (G. Chapman), 154, 1S7, 
402, 404/., .^/e. 

"All for Money" (T. Lupton), 111. 
117-119, 141, 143. 

"All's Well that Ends Well" (Shake- 
speare), 243, note; 2S1 /. 

"Alphonsus of Arragon" (R. Greene), 
246. S35. 265. 

"Alphonsus of Germany," 212, 219/., 
238. 

Alsfeld. passion play of. 18. 

" Amadis of Gaul." 233, 234, 243. 

"Ameto" (G. Boccaccio), 260. 

"Aminta" (T. Tasso), 289/., 395. 

"Amphitruo" (Plautus). relation of. 
to "Jack Juggler," 157/.; relation of, 
to "The Birth of Hercules," 160. 

Amyot, Jacques. 260. 

"Andria" (Terence). 168, t8S. 

V Antonio and Mellida," Ufo parts (J. 
Marston), 220, S28, 380. 



"Antonius" (Countess of Pembroke, 
from Garnier). 198/.. 200, ^^25. 

"Antony and Cleopatra" (Shake- 
speare), 330, 336 /, 348. 

"Appius and Virginia" (R. B.), 58, 
120, note; 138, 140. 145, 205. 206. 

Arber. Edward. 386. 

"Arcadia" (Sannazzaro). 260. 

"Arcadia" (Sir P. Sidney), 256, 260. 
262, 280. 288. 

"Arden of Feversham." 352, 354, 
335-357, 359-361. 368, 387. 

Ariosto, L. See "Suppositi." 

Armada. The. 175, 345. 

"Arraignment of Paris, The" (G. 
Peele), 180, 187, 265, 290, 423. 

Arthur. See "King Arthur." 

Ascension Day. dramatic services on, 
3. 

Ascham, Roger. 37. 164. 233, 435, 445. 

"As You Like It" (Shakespeare), 
152, 179, 256, 263, 269, 270. 274, 
279, 280, 283, 284, 287, 2S8, 295. 

"Aulularia" (Plautus), 404. 

Autolycus. 108. 396 /. 

Bacon. Francis. 194. 

Bale, John, 74. note; 85. 86-88, 91, 

100, 112; German connections, 130; 

149, 440. 
Ballad, The, 230. 231. See also "Rox- 

burghe." 
Bandello, M., 257. 
Bariona, L. (Lawrence Johnson?), 

165, 168. 
"Barnavelt, Sir John van Olden," 

(J. Fletcher?), 345, note; 349. 
Barnes, Barnabe. See "Devil's Char- 
ter." 
"Bartholomew Fair" (B. Jonson), 79, 

367, 402, 407, 419, 430, 442. 
Baskervill, C. R., 411. note; 418, 

4S0. 



450 



INDEX 



"Battle of Alcazar, The" (G. Peele), 

304, 310, 311 /., 346. 
Beard, Thomas, 441. 
Beatty, Arthur, 4, note; 41- 
Beccari, A., 289. 
"Beech's Tragedy," 362. 
Berners, Lord, translator. See "Huon 

of Bordeaux" and "Froissart." 
Beverley (in Yorkshire), lost plays 

acted at, 7, 12, 49. 
Beza, Theodore, 133, I44. 
"Biron," two parts (G. Chapman), 

250, 322, 349. 
."Birth of Hercules, The" (adapted 

from the " Amphitruo" of Flautus), 

160, 184. 
"Birth of Merlin, The," 191, note; 

340, 360. 
"Black Bateman of the North" (lost 

play), 353. 
"Black Dog of Newgate, The" (lost 

play), 353, 354/. 
Blackfriars Theatre. 300, note; 380, 

382. 
"Blind Beggar of Alexandria, The" 

(G. Chapman), 402/., 416. 
" Blind Beggar of Bednal-Green, The " 

(Chettle and Day), 3«, 351. 
"Blurt Master Constable" (T. Mid- 

dleton), 417. 
Boas, F. S., 158, note; 384, note. 
Bobadill, 151. 

Boccaccio, G., 135, 166, 257, 260. 
Bolingbroke, L. T., 7, note; 4I. 
Bond, R. W., 173, 184, 185. 
Borne, William (or Birde), 354. 
Boy Bishop, The, 4. 
Bradley, Henry, 105, note; I4S, 162, 

note; 183. 
Brandon, Samuel. See "Octavia." 
Brereton, J. LeG., 254, 296. 
"Broken Heart, The" (J. Ford), 445. 
Brome; play of "Abraham's Sacrifice," 

preserved at, 21-23, 45. 
Brooke, Lord. See Greville. 
Brooke, C. F. T., 95, note; 177, note; 

253, 254, 431, note. 
"Buckingham" (lost play), 322. 
"Bugbears, The," 168 /., 184, 403, 

note. 
Bullen, A. H., 184, 242. 254. 
Burbage, James (the elder), 428. 
Burbage, Richard (the younger). 58, 

300, 429. 
Burghley (or Burleigh), Lord, 171,176. 
"Burial and Resurrection," plays of, 

20, 21, 45. 



Bussy d'Ambois, two parts (G. Chap- 
man), 220, 229, 250. 

Cady. F. W.. 6. note; 44. 

"Csesar, Julius" (Sir William Alexan- 
der), 201, 202, 226. 

"Csesar, Julius" (Shakespeare). 202, 
313. 332. 336-338, 349, 375, note; 
382. 396. 

"Caesar and Pompey " (G. Chapman). 
See "Pompey and Csesar." 

"Calisto and Melibea," 133/.. 14s. 

"Cambises. King of Persia" (T. 
Preston). 58. 138. 139, 140, 146, 
205, 206, 207, 239. 

"Campaspe" (J. Lyly), 173 /., 178, 
185/., 279. 

Campion, Thomas, 436. 

"Candlemas Day" (Digby play so 
called), 23-25, 46. See also "Dig- 
by." 

"Captives, The" (T. Heywood), I84. 

"Captivi" (Plautus), 164, 403, note; 
404. 

"Ca.se is Altered, The" (B. Jonson), 
373, 374, 380, 403, 404, 417. 

"Castle of Perseverance, The," 17, 
50, 51-61, 65, 67, 76, 78, 89, 90. 
110, 119, 136/. 

"Catiline his Conspiracy" (B. Jon- 
son), 226, 349. 

"Celestina," 133, 145. 

"Chabot, Tragedy of " (Chapman 
and Shirley), 345, note. 

Chambers, E. K., 8, note; 38, 49, 147, 
note; 426, note 2. 

Chapman, George, 187, 220, 228, 394, 
399, 402, 404-406, 416. 

Charlemagne. See "Distracted Em- 
peror." 

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 2, 24, 36, 37, 50, 
79; connection between, and John 
Heywood, 93; 95, 96, 97; 108, 123, 
166, 290, 409. 

Chester, plays performed at, 8, 15; 
relationship with Brome play of 
" Abraham's Sacrifice," 22; 35, 36, 
43; lost play of King Robert of 
Sicily played at, 46. 

Chettle, Henry, 212, 220, 228, 275, 
301, note; 353, 362, 374, note; 408. 

"Chinon of England" (lost play), 322. 

Christmas, dramatic services at, 3. 

"Christ's Burial and Resurrection." 
See "Burial." 

Churchyard, Thomas, 179, 180, 187. 

Cinthio, G., 257, 268. 



INDEX 



451 



"Cleopatra" (S. Daniel), 200, 202, 

225 f. 
""Club Law," 413/., 420. 
"Clyomon and Clamides," 336/, 26S. 
"Cobbler's Prophecy. The" (R. Wil- 
son), 140, 145. 
Collier, J. P., 38 /., 121, note; 130, 

note; 219, 353, note; 371, note. 
Collins, J. Churton, 271. 
"Comedy of Errors, The" (Shake- 
speare), 149, 152, 153, 159. 
"Comedy of Humors, The" (G. 

Chapman), 405., 
"Common Conditions," 237/., S6S. 
"Concordia Regularis," 3, 42. 
Condell, Henry, 386. 
" Conflict of Conscience " (N.Woodes) , 

52, note; 120-122, 129, 143. 
Congreve, William, 282. 
"Contention between Liberality and 

Prodigality," 120, 122/., 143. 
"Coriolanus" (Shakespeare), 330, 

337, 348, 396. 
"Cornelia" (T. Kyd), 198, 199 /., 

225, 240. 
Cornish plays: mystery plays, 17, 
I .*5/.,54. 57;"LifeofSt. Meriasek." 

31, note; 46. 
Corpus Christi, establishment of fes- 
tival, 6, 29, 85. 
Coventry, plays acted at, 7, 8, 9, 12, 15, 

43. .See also "Ludus Coventrise." 
Cox, Captain, of Coventry, 234. 
."Cox of Collumpton" (lost play by 

Day and Haughton), 353. 
Crawford, Charles, 356, note. 
Creed plays, 48 /. 
Creizenach, W., 38, 80, note; 206, 

note. 
"Croesus" (Sir William Alexander), 

201, 226. 
Cromwell, Oliver, 445. 
"Cromwell, Thomas Lord," 299, 

note; 321, 347 f. 
Cromwell, Thomas, 35. 
Croxton play. See "Sacrament, Play 

of." 
Cunliffe, J. W., 144, 181 /., I84, 194, 

note; 195, 222, 224 f- 
"Cursor Mundi," 2. 
Curtain Theatre, 427, 428. 
"Cymbeline" (Shakespeare), 191, 

note; 279, 282, 285, 339, 350. 
"Cynthia's Revels" (B. Jonson), 
372, 374, 375/., 377, 378, note; 380, 
382, 411, 414, 418. 
Cyrus. See "Wars of Cyrus." 



"Damon and Pithias" (R. Edwards), 

68, 138, 14B, 188, 205, 206, 239. 
Dance, village, 4, 230; morris, 4; dance 

of death, 61. 
Daniel, P. A., 367. 
Daniel, Samuel, 200, 201, 202, 226 f 

290/., 374, 437. 
"Daphnis and Chloe" (Longus), 259 

260, 261. 
"Darius" (Sir William Alexander). 

201. 
"Darius." See "King Darius." 
"David and Bethsabe" (G. Peele). 

142. 
Day, Angel, 260. 
Day, John, 288, 353, 354, 362. 
"Death of Robert. Earl of Hunting- 
ton" (Munday and Chettle), 273- 
276, 294, 341. 
"Debate of the Body and Soul" 

50. 
Dekker, Thomas, 301, note; 340, 353 
354, 372, 373, 374, 376, 377, 378, 
384, 388, 408, 410, 415, 417. 
Dennis, John, 401. 
"De-vil is an Ass, The" (B, Jonson) 

419. 
"Devil's Charter, The" (B. Barnes). 

212, 220, 228. 
"Diana Enamorada" (J. de Monte- 
mayor), 260/., 262. 
"Dido, Queen of Carthage" (Mar- 
lowe and Nash), 161, 243, 322, 
note; 348. 
Digby: plays in Digby MS. (Bod- 
leian), 23 #., SS. (See aZso " Can- 
dlemas Day," "Mary Magda- 
lene, Conversion of," and "Saint 
Paul.") 
"Disobedient Child, The" (T. Inge- 
leod). 114, 124, 125-127, 135, 136. 
144, 166. 
"Distracted Emperor, The" (or 

"Charlemagne"), 242, 254. 
"Doctor Faustus" (Marlowe), 52, 58, 
59, 142, 249 /., 252, 264, 265, 267. 
323. 
Dodsley, Robert, "Collection of Old 
Plays" originally published by, 25, 
39. 
Dolce, Lodovico, 190, 196. 
Donne, John, 280, 444. 
Dowden, Edward, 282, note; 443 /. 
"Downfall of Robert, Earl of Hun- 
tington.'The" (A. Munday), 273 /., 
275, 294, 341. 
Drayton, Michael, 353. 



453 



INDEX 



Dnimmond, William, of Flawthorn- 
I den, 378. 

Dublin; play of " Abraham's Sacri- 
fice " preserved at, 21-23, 45 /. 
Dunib-sihow, origin of the, 193 /. 
Dunbar, William, !)1. 
"Dux Moraud," 27-29, ^6, 51. 
Dyce, A., 410. 

"Earl Godwin" (lost plays), 301. 

Easter plays, 2, /. 

"Eastward Hoe" (Chapman, Jonson, 
and Marston), 355, note; 402, 405, 
406, note;415, 4/7, 442. 

"Edward I" (G. Peele), 266, S38 /., 
Si9 

"Edward II" (Marlowe), 212, 250/., 
298, 313, S22/., 32i, 325. 326, 327, 
329, 5i8. 

"Edward III." 331/., 3J,9. 

"Edward IV," two parts (T. Hey- 
wood), 343/, S50. 

Edwards, Richard, 150, 431, note. 

"Elidure." See "Nobody and Some- 
body." 

Elizabeth, Queen: state of the drama 
at her death, 1; her relations with 
the Duo d'Alencon and Leicester 
allegorized, 175 ff.; "Ferrex and 
Porrex" presented before, 191 /.; 
attitude of her government toward 
common players, 425 /. 

Elizabethan drama; connection with 
earlier drama, 37; contrasted with 
the drama which followed, 279 /., 
390/, 438 /T. 

"Endimion" (J. Lyly). 174, 175-178, 
1S6. 

"England's Helicon," 261. 

"Epicoene" (B. Jonson), 404, J^19^ 

Eton School, 158. 

"Euphues" (J. Lyly), 171. 175, 178, 
204, note. Euphuistio style imi- 
tated by Greene, 246. 

Euripides, 190, 223. 

"Everyman," 1, 53, 60, 61, 66. 67 f., 
78, 119. 

"Every Man in his Humor" (B. Jon- 
son), 152, 374, 390, 404, 405, 406/, 
412, 414, 416 f.. 418. 

"Every Man out of his Humor" (B. 
Jonson), 374, 375, 376. 377, 379, 
380, 409/, 414, 4/S. 

"Every Woman in her Humor," 417. ■ 

"Fair Em." 241, 270-272, 276. S93 /., 
338. 



"Faerio Queene, The" (Spenser), 

U5, note; 262, 280. 
"Faithful Shepherdess, The" (J. 

Fletcher), 263, 292, S96. 
Falstaff, 151, .397/ 
"Family of Love, The" (T. Middle- 
ton), 41,5, 419. 
"Famous Victories of Henry V, The." 

See "Henry V." 
" Farewell to Folly" (R. Greene), 27.0, 

note. 
"Faustus." See "Doctor Faustus." 
Feast of the Ass, The, 4. 
"Fedole and Fortunio," 169, 184. 

(Also called "Two Italian Gentle- 
men.") 
"Ferrex and Porrex" (Sackville and 

Norton), 139, 190, 191-194, 196, 

205, 208, 209, e23 /., 302, 369, 423. 

(Also called "Gorboduc") 
Fitch, R., 9, note. 
Fleay, F. G., 369, note; 372, 374. 376, 

note; 379, note. 
Fletcher, John, 406, 443. 
Ford, John, 445, 446. 
Fortune Theatre, 300, note; 381, 430/ 
"Fountain of ' Self-Love, The" (B. 

Jonson). See "Cynthia's Revels." 
"Four Elements, Nature of the" (J. 

Rastell), 73-76, 82, 99. 
"Four P's. The" (J. Heywood). 97, 

lOS. 
" Four Plays in One." See "Yorkshire 

Tragedy." 
"Four Prentices of London, The" 

(T. Heywood), 241/, S53, 344. 
Fraunce, Abraham, 289, ^95. 
"Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay" (R. 

Greene), 142, 263, 265-268, 271. 

272, 273, 276, 279. S93. 
Froissart. translated by Lord Berners. 

299. 
Fulwell, Ulpian. See "Like Will to 

Like." 
"Funeral of Richard Cceur de Lion, 

The" (lost play), 275,301. 

"Gallathea" (J. Lyly), 174. 179, 186. 

290. 
"Gammer Gurton's Needle" (W. 

Stevenson?). 158. 161-164. 166, 

167. 183. 189. 369, 404, 423. 
Gamier, Robert, 198/, 200, 290. 
Gascoigne, George, 127, 144. 172, 179, 

184. 187. 190, 196, 201, SS4 f- 
Gayley, C. M.. 40, 41, ISS. 
Gentillet, Innocent, 213. 



INDEX 



453 



"Gentleman and Husbandman, Dia- 
logue between the," 85. 

"Gentleman Usher, The" (G. Chap- 
man), 416. 

"Gentleness and Nobility" (J. Hey- 
wood?), 94/., 102. 

Geoffrey, Abbot of St. Albans, 26. 

Geofifrey of Monmouth, 191 /. 

"George a Greene," 241, 293, 297, 
338, 342. 

"Gesta Romanorum," 2. 

"Gismond of Salerne" (R. Wilmot, 
etc.), 196/., 205, .2.^5, 423. 

Glapthorne, Henry, 446. 

"Glass of Government, The" (G. 
Gaacoigne), 127-129, 144. 166. 

Globe Theatre, 380, 381, 382. 415, 
429. 

"Godfrey of Boulogne" (lost play), 
322. 

"Godly Queen Hester," 131/.. H4. 

"God's Promises" (J. Bale), 86 /., 
100. 

"Golden Legend. The" (J. de Vora- 
gine), 2. 

Golding, Arthur, 133, 144. 

Goldsmith, Oliver, 282. 

"Goosecap. Sir Giles" (G. Chap- 
man?), 406, note; 420. 

"Gorboduc." See "Ferrex and Por- 
rex." 

Gosson. Stephen, 233, 234, 435, 440. 

Gower, John. 2. 

Gray's Inn. 194. 196. 

Grazzini, A. F., 168. 

Greene, Robert, 181, 246/, 256. 257, 
262. 263-270. 272. 278, 279, e93, 
311,316, note; 371. 

Greg, W. W., 270, note; 288, note; 
292. 

Greville, Fulke (Lord Brooke), 201, 
226. 

Griseldis, 166, 408, 409. 

"Grissell, Comedy of Meek and Pa- 
tient" (John Phillip), 135, 145, 205, 
206. 

"Grissell, Patient" (Dekker, Chettle, 
and Haughton). See "Patient 
Grissell." 

"Groatsworth of Wit" (R. Greene), 
267, 316, note. I 

Guarini, Battista. 288. 

Guilds: ri.se of trade, Q ff.; innovations 
in acting due to guild performance, i 
9/..' maintenance of guild plays. 11; j 
connection of guild plays with later i 
drama. 13/ ' 



Hall, or Halle. Edward. 299. 

"Hamlet" (Shakespeare). 1, 36. 209, 
212. 220. 244. 250. 286, 327, 338, 
381-386. SSS/. 392. 

"Hamlet." the early play (by T. 
Kyd?). 217. 221. 227, 261. 

Hampden. John, 445. 

"Hardicanute" (lost play), 322. 

Harrod, H., 9, note. 

"Harrowing of Hell, The." 5. 42. 

Hath way, R., 353, 354. 

Haughton, W., 353, 362, 374, note; 
408. 

Hazlitt, William, 258. 

Hazlitt, W. C, 38, 39, 74, note. 

Hegge plays. See "Ludus Coven- 
trise." 

Heliodorus. See ".lEthiopica." 

Hemings, John, 386. 

Hemingway. S. B., 8, note; 15. note; 
40. 

"Henry I, Wars of" (lost play), 301. 

"Henry IV," Part I (Shakespeare), 
297. 307. 30S. 332. 333-336. 349, 
392. 

"Henry IV," Part II (Shakespeare), 
297, 307, 308, 312, note; 332, 333- 
336, 349, 401. 

"Henry V, Famous Victories of," 
304, 306-308, 346. 

"Henry V" (Shakespeare). 250. 297. 
307. 332. 333. 335/, 349. 382, 401. 

"Henry VI," Part I (revised byShake- 
speare). 304. 313-315. 346. 

"Henry VI." Part II (Marlowe and 
Shakespeare). 218. 316-321. 324. 
329. 347. 

"Henry VI." Part III (Marlowe and 
Shakespeare), 218, 308. 316-321. 
324, 326. 344. 5.^7. 

Henry VII: state of drama at his ac- 
ces.sion. 1 ; the morality at his acces- 
sion. 66; development of the inter- 
lude in his reign, 71; allusion to his 
death in " Nature of the Four Ele- 
ments," 74. 

"Henry VIII" (Shakespeare and 
Fletcher), 345 and note. 

Henslowe, Philip, 14, 219, 240, 241, 
270, note; 273, 275, 300, 301, 303, 
321, 322, 353, 354, 362, 381, 404, 
405, 429, 430, 434. 

Herbert, George, 444. 

Herford, C. H., 38, 130, note: 144- 

"Hester." See "Godly Queen Hes- 
ter." 

Heuser, W., 27, note; 46, 70, note. 



454 



INDEX 



y 



Heywood, John. 85, 93-97, 101 /., 

no, 111, 123, 134, 148, 161, 172. 
Heywood, Thomas, ISJ,, 299, note; 

343-315, 364, note; 367, 368,355, 

414. 
"Hickacorner," 80/., 55. . 
Higden, Ranulph: hia conjectural 

authorship of the Chester myste- 
ries, 8, 36. 
Hilariua, 27. 
"Histriomastix" (revised by John 

Marston?), 378/., 380, 38S. 
"Hoffman" (H. Chettle), 212, 220, 

275. 
Holinshed, Raphael, 155, 299, 302, 

307, 330, 331, 353, 357. 
Horace, 192, 195, 203, 204. 
"Horestes" (J. Pikering), 59, 138, 

139/., 145, 173, 174,205. 
"How a Man May Choose a Good 

Wife from a Bad," 413/, /,50. 
Hroswitha of Gandersheim, 154. 
Hughes, Thomas, 194, 195, 201, 20y. 
"Humorous Day's Mirth, A" (G. 

Chapman), 405, ^16. 
Hunt, Leigh, 289 /. 
" Huntington, Robert, Earl of." See 

"Downfall" and "Death." 
"Huon of Bordeaux" translated by 

Lord Earners, 233; lost play, 322. 
Hutton, Luke, 354 /. 
Hyginus, 173. 
"Hymen's Triumph" (S. Daniel), 

291. 296. 

"If You Know Not Me, You Know 
Nobody," two parts (T. Heywood), 
299, note; 344/., 350 f., 392, note. 

"Impatient Poverty," 109, 124, note 
3; l't3. 

"Ingannati," 168. 

Ingelend, Thomas. See "Disobedi- 
ent Child." 

Inner Temple, The, 196. 

Inn-yard, performance of plays in, 
64, 424, 428. 

Interlude: distinguished from moral- 
ity, 69 /., requisites of, 70; aristo- 
cratic character, 71. 

"Iphigenia at Aulis " (Euripides), 
translated by Lady Lumley. 190, 
223. 

"Isle of Gulls, The" (J. Day), 288. 

"Jack Drum's Entertainment" (J. 

Marston?). 379/, 3S8. 
"Jack Juggler," 156-158, ISS. 



"Jack Straw, Life and Death of," 

304, 346. 
"Jacob and Esau." 133, 144- 
"James IV" (R. Greene), 263, 266, 

268-370. 273. 293, 297. 338, 339, 

342. 
" Jeronimo, First Part of," 215, S27 f. 
"Jew of Malta" (Marlowe), 209, 212. 

219, ^^5, 250/, 311, 313. 
"Jocasta" (translated by Gascoigne 

and Kinwelmersh), 190, 196, 223, 

224 f., 423. 
"John a Kent and .John a Cumber" 

(A. Munday), 373/, 294, 353, note. 
"John Baptist" (J. Bale), 87, 100. 
"John Bon," 85, 101. 
"John John the Husband, Tib the 

Wife, etc." (J. Heywood). 97. 102. 
"John, King of England" (J. Bale), 

88, 89, 101, 130/, 144, 302. 
"John, King of England, Trouble- 
some Reign of," two parts, 302 /.. 

304. 305, 306, 308, 331, 341, 346. 

(For Shakespeare's play, see "King 

John.") 
"John the Evangelist," 104-106, 133, 

142. 
Jones, Inigo, 432. 
Jonson, Ben., 53. 150, 171. 184, 202, 

203. 211, 233, note; 245, 280. 292. 

353 /, 372, 373-378, 379, 380, 381, 

384, 385, 386, 388, 390, 394, 39e; 

his comedies discussed, 402-408; 

409 /. 410, 411, 415, 418 /. 437, 

442. 
"Julius Csesar." See "Casar." 
Jusserand, J. J., 41, 124, note. 

Kemp, William, 384. 

King Arthur, 137. 

"King Darius," 131. 132/.. 139. 140, 
144, 148, 205, 440. 

"King John" (Shakespeare), 304-306, 
331, 341, 346. (For other plays on 
this subject, see " John. King of Eng- 
land.") 

"King Lear" (Shakespeare), 191, 
note; 192. 286. 339, 3.50, 398-400. 

"King Leir and his Three Daughters," 
339, 350. 

Kinwelmersh, Fjancis, 190, 196, 224 /■ 

Kirchmayer. Thomas (Naogeorgius), 
130. 

Kirkman, Francis, 219. 

Kittredge, G. L., 165, IS4. 

"Knack to Know a Knave. A." 141, 
146, 339. 



INDEX 



455 



"Knight of the Burning Pestle, The" 

(Beaumont and Fletcher), 242, 

25 Jt. 
Kyd, Thomas. Ill, 197, 198, 209- 

217, 226 S., 235, 240, 251, 269, 356, 

363, 440. 

"Lady of May, The" (Sir P. Sidney), 
180, 1S7. 

Lamb, Charles, 340, 343. 

Langland, William, 92, 106. See 
"Piers the Plowman." 

"Larum for London, A" (or "The 
Siege of Antwerp"), 343, 35t. 

Lateware, D., 201. 

Lear (Leir). iSee "King Lear (Leir)." 

Leicester, Earl of, represented in 
"Endimion," 176 /.; interest in 
actors, 426 /. 

"Liberality and Prodigality." See 
"Contention between Liberality 
and Prodigality." 

Lewis, C. M., 227. 

"Like Will to Like, etc." (Ulpian Ful- 
well), 108/., 136. lJ!t2. 

Lincoln: mystery plays at, 7, 8; mira- 
cle play, 46; paternoster play, 49. 

Lindsay, Sir David, 88 ff., 100. 

Liturgical plays. 5. 6. 

"Locrine," 191, note; 207-209, S26, 
302, 310, 311, 331. 

Lodge, Thomas, 247, 256, 257, 262, 
312. 

London corporation, hostility to 
plays, 426. 

"London Prodigal, The," 79, 414, 
J,02. 

"Longer Thou Li vest, the More Fool 
Thou Art" (W. Wager), 111, 119/., 
1J,3. 

Longua. Sec "Daphnis and Chloe." 

"Look About You," 341. 350. 

"Looking Glass for London and Eng- 
land, A " (Lodge and Greene), 142, 
246/, S55. 

"Lord Governance and Lady Public- 
Weal" (lost play by John Roo). 83, 
100. 

Lord of Misrule. 4, 194. 

"Love, Play of" (J. Heywood), 95, 
96, 101. 

"Love and Fortune, The Rare Tri- 
umphs of," 140, 180/, 187. 

"Love's Labor's Lost "(Shakespeare), 
178, 395. 

"Love's Labor Won" (unidentified 
play by Shakespeare), 395, note. 



"Love's Metamorphosis" (J. Lyly), 

174, 179, 186. 
Lucrece: fragmentary interlude deal- 
ing with Publius Cornelius and a 

lady Lucrece, 134. 
"Ludus Coventrise" (so called), 17- 

20. 35. J,5, 57, 61. 89. 
"Ludus de Sancta Katarina" (lost 

play), 26. 
Lumley, Lady, 190, 223. 
Lupton, T. Sec "All for Money." 
"Lust's Dominion," 212, 219, 228. 
"Lusty Juventus" (R. Wever), 81/., 

99. 
Luther, Martin, satirized in lost Latin 

play, 83 / 
Lyly, John, 111, 153, 169-179, 185, 

264, note; 265, 267, 369, 371, 391, 

note; 413, 423, 432. 

"Macbeth" (Shakespeare), 214, note; 

286, 329, 330, 336, S^S, 360, 366, 

392, 399. 
MacCracken, H. N., 79, note; 108, 

note. 
Machiavelli, N., 213 /. 
Macro plays, 51, 61, 63, 64, 66, 67. 

See also "Castle of Perseverance," 

"Mind, Will, and Understanding," 

and "Mankind." 
Macropedius, Georgiu.i, 124. 125, 128. 
"Mad World, My Masters, A" (T. 

Middleton), 415, 419. 
"Magnetic Lady, The" (B. Jonson), 

419. 
"Magnificence" (J. Skelton), 60, 

note; 82/., 91, 100, 106, 116, note; 

131, 132, 439. 
" Maid's Metamorphosis, The," 187. 
Malory, Sir Thomas, 37, 232. 
" Mankind," 63-66. 67, 78, 423, 424. 
Manly, J. M., 40. 192. 231, note. 
Mantuanus (Battista Spagnuoli), 

258, 259. 
Marlowe, Christopher, 111, 193, 197, 

212, 217. 222, 228. 235, 239 /, 241, 

243-246, 254, 278. 298, 301, 302. 

304, 312, 316-323, 324, 325, 327. 

329, 345, 348, 371, 440. 
Marot, Clement, 180, 259. 
Marprelate. See "Martin Marpre- 

late." 
"Marriage of Wit and Science," 76/.. 

99. (See also John Redford's " Wit 

and Science.") 
"Marriage of Wit and Wisdom" (F. 

Merbury), 77/., 55. 



456 



INDEX 



Marston, John, 220, 228, 374, 376, 

note; 376, note; 378-380, 381, 388, 

410, 442. 
Martin Marprelate, 370/., 372. 
"Mary Magdalene, Conversion of" 

(Digby MS.), 33-35, 46, 54, 110. 
"Mary Magdalene, Life and Repent- 
ance of" (W. Wager), 111, 113 /., 

143. 
"Massacre at Paris" (Marlowe), 298, 

304, 311, 312 /., 318, 343, 345. 
Massinger, Philip, 443. 
Matthew Paris, 26. 
"May Day" (G. Chapman), 404, 416. 
"Mayor of Queenborough, The" (T. 

Middleton), 339, 350. 
"Measure for Measure" (Shake- 
speare), 256, 281, 284, 401, note; 

442. 
Medwall, Henry, 72, note; 98. See 

also under "Nature." 
"Mensechmi" (Plautus), 156, 160, 

183. 
"Menaphon" (R. Greene), 262, 263, 

288. 
Merbury, Francis, 77, 99. 
"Merchant of Venice, The" (Shake- 
speare), 152, 279, 281, 295, 290, 

note; 392. 
Meres, Francis, 233, 234, 272, 395. 
"Merry Devil of Edmonton, The," 

163, 276-279, 294. 
"Merry Wives of Windsor, The" 

(Shakespeare) , 400 /. 
"Michaelmas Term" (T. Middleton), 

415, 419. 
"Microcosmos" (T. Nabbes), 103. 
"Midas" (J. Lyly), 174, 175, 176, 

1S6. 
Middleton, Thomas, 280, 394, 415, 

419/., 443. 
"Midsummer Night's Dream, A" 

(Shakespeare), 152, 178, 180, 188, 

269, 270, 279, 280, 282, 283, 287, 

295. 
"Miles Gloriosus" (Plautus), 159, 

161. 
Milton, John, 444. 
Mimes, 4, 147. 
"Mind, Will and Understanding" 

(or "Wisdom"), 61-63, 67, 73, 110. 
Miracle plays, 26, 47. 
"Mirror for Magistrates" (various 

authors), 299, 302. 
"Mirror of the Periods of Man's 

Life," 79. 
."Miseries of Enforced Marriage, 



The" (G. Wilkins), 364 /., 366 /., 
368, 383, note; 387 /. 

"Misfortunes of Arthur, The" (T. 
Hughes, etc.), 194-106, 197, 205, 
208, 224. 302, 423. 

"Misogonus" (L. Johnson?), 163, 
165-167, 168, 184, 403, note; 404. 

"Monarchic Tragedies" (Sir William 
Alexander), 201, 226. 

"Monsieur D'Olive" (G. Chapman), 
404, 416. 

Montemayor, Jorge de, 260, 261, 262, 
263. 

Morality, or Moral Play: species anti- 
cipated in certain mysteries, 19; de- 
fined, 47 /.; earliest mention, 48 /.; 
source of the type, 49 /.; relation to 
interlude, 69; plebeian tendencies, 
71. 

"More, Sir Thpmas," 70, 321, 322. 
348. 

More, Sir Thomas, 155. 

Morton, Cardinal, 71. 

"Mother Bombie" (J. Lyly), 153, 
170/., 172, 188, 413. 

"MucedoruB," 59, 241, 253, 262. 

"Much Ado about Nothing" (Shake- 
speare), 169, 281, 395. 

Munday, Anthony, 169, 233, 272-276, 
294, 301, note; 353, 357, 373, 374. 

"Mundus et Infans." See "World 
and the Child, The." 

"Mustapha" (F. Greville), 201, 226. 

Mystery: connection with guilds, 6/.; 
extant specimens, 7-9; origin of the 
term, 25; distinguished from mo- 
rality, 47/.; bourgeois tendencies of, 
71. 

Nabbes, Thomas, 103. 

Nash, or Nashe, Thomas, 142, 146, 

315, 370, 371. 
"Nature" (H. Medwall), 71-73, 9S, 

110, 115. 
" Nero, Tragedy of," 349. 
Newcastle plays, 7, 9, 11, 12, 16, 43 f. 
"New Custom," 88, 101, 440. 
"New Inn, The" (B. Jonson), 419. 
Newton, Thomas, 189, 190, note; 

222/. 
" Nice Wanton," 124/., 127, 143, 148, 

166. 
" Nobody and Somebody," 339, 350. 
"Norfolk Archaeology": cited, 7, note; 

9, note; 10, note; 12, note. 
North, Sir Thomas, 299. 
Northampton; possible connection of, 



INDEX 



457 



with the "Ludus Coventriae," 19; 
with the "Dublin" play of " Abra- 
ham's Sacrifice," 21. 

Northbrook, John, 427 /., 435, 440. 

"Northward Hoe" (Dekker and Web- 
ster), 415, 417. 

Norton, Thomas, 191, 193. 194, 195, 
209. 

Norwich plays, 7, 9, 11, 12, 19, U- 

"Octavia, Virtuous" (S. Brandon), 

200, 226. 
CEdipus, 192. 
"Oldcastle, Sir John, First Part of" 

(M. Drayton, etc.), 163, 301, 321, 

322, 347. 
"Old Fortunatus" (T. Dekker). 277, 

S50. 
rOld Wives' Tale, The" (G. Peele), 
I 242. 254, 279. 
* Orlando Furioso" (R. Greene). 247, 

255. 
"Orphans' Tragedy" (lost play by H. 

Chettle) , 362. 
"Othello" (Shakespeare), 252, 256, 

261, 286, 324, 360, 399. 
Ovid: influence on Lyly, 173; 180. 
"Owen Tudor" (lost play), 322. 
"Owl and the Nightingale, The," 

50. 

"Page of Plymouth" (lost play by 
Jonson and Dekker), 353. 354. 

Pageant, 10, 11; Rogers's description 
of, 12/. 

"Palace of Pleasure" (W. Painter), 
235, 256, 257. 

"Palemon and Arcite" (lost»play by 
R. Edwards), 431. 

"Pammachius"(T. Kirchmayer), 130. 

"Pandosto" (R. Greene), 256, 263 /. 

"Pardoner and the Friar, The" (J. 
Hey wood), 97, 102. 

Parnassus plays. See "Pilgrimage to 
Parnassus" and "Return from 
Parnassus." 

Parrott. T. M., 404, 406. 416. 

Pasqualigo, Luigi, 169. 

" Pastor Fido, 11" (B. Guarini), 289, 
295. 

Patericke, or Patrick, Simon. 213. 

Paternoster plays, 48 /. 

"Patient Grissell" (Dekker. Chettle, 
and Haughton), 374, note; 408^10, 
416. (For another play on this sub- 
ject, see "Grissell.") 

Pavier, Thomas, 366. 



Peele, George, 180, 187, 236, 265. 266, 
267, 279, 312, 440. 

Pembroke. Countess of (Lady Mary 
Sidney). 190. 197. 198. 201. 225, 
290. 437. 

Penniman, J. H., 374. 376, note; 379, 
note; 387 f. 

"Pericles" (G. Wilkins? and Shake- 
speare), 279, 282, 295, 364. 

"Perkin Warbeck " (J. Ford), 345, 
349. 

Petrarch, F., 166. 

Pettie, George, " Petite Palace of Pettie 
his Pleasure," 256. 

Phelps. W. L.. 4I6. 

Philip II of Spain, satirized in Lyly's 
"Midas," 175. 

Phillip, John. See "Grissell." 

"Philotas" (S. Daniel), 200/., 226. 

"Pierce of Exton" (lost play), 301. 

Pierce, F. E., 417. 

"Pierce Penniless" (T. Nash), 315. 

"Piers the Plowman" (W. Langland), 
53, 79, 92. 

Pikering, John. See "Horestes." 

"Pilgrimage to Parnassus," 411, 4^0. 

"Pinner of Wakefield, The." See 
"George a Green." 

Planctus Marias, in play of "Burial 
and Resurrection," 20. 

Plautus: imitation of, 148 #., 156 #.; 
influence of, on early English com- 
edy, 150-154, 155; translation of, 
156, 182; 170. 172. 188. 402. 403, 
note; 404. 

Pliny, 173. 

Plutarch, 173, 200, 203, 269. 299, 312, 
330, 338. 

"Poetaster, or the Arraignment" (B. 
Jonson), 372, 373, 374, 376, note; 
377, 378. 380. 381. 382. 383. 384, 
385, SSS, 407, 41T- 

Poliziano, Agnolo, 289. 

Pollard, A. W., 40, 65, 67. 

"Pompey and Csesar, Wars of" (G. 
Chapman). 345. note. 

Preston, Thomas. 236. See aUo under 
"Cambises." 

"Prick of Conscience" (Richard 
RoUe). 2. 

"Pride of Life." 60/.. 54. 61, 67. 

Prodigal Son story, a theme for inter- 
ludes, 124 ff., 144- 

" Promos and Cassandra, " two parts, 
(G. Whetstone), 360, note. 

Prudentius, 50. 

Publius Cornelius. See "Lucrece." 



458 



INDEX 



"Puritan, The," 79, 169, 412, 415, 
431, 433. note; 442. 

"Queen's Arcadia, The" (S. Daniel), 
291, 293 /. 

Rabelais, 213. 

"Ralph Roister Doister" (N. Udall), 

86, 158-161, 162, 163, 164, 167, 183, 

184, 423. 
Ramsay, R. L., 60, note; 83, note; 

100, 116, note. 
" Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune, 

The." See under "Love." 
Rastell, John, 69; authorship of "The 

Nature of the Four Elements," 74; 

publisher of "Gentleness and No- 
bility," 103, and "Caliato and Meli- 

bea," 133, 145; 134. 
"Rebelles" (G. Macropedius), 124. 
Redford, John, 76, 77, 99. 
Reed, E. B., 384, note. 
Religion, relation of, to dramatic pro- 
gress, 2, 439 ff. 
"Respublica," 85/., 89, 100, 106, 114, 

131, 148, 440. 
"Return from Parnassus, The," two 

parts, 383-385, 3S9, (2d part 

only); 411 /., 413,4^0. 
Revels Office, 194. 
"Revenger's Tragedy, The" (C. 

Tourneur), 220, S.28, 445. 
"Richard I." See "Funeral of Rich- 
ard Coeur de Lion." 
"Richard II" (Shakespeare), 251 /., 

297, 313, 323, 336-338, 329, 331, 

333, 336, 34s, 392. 
"Richard II." See "Woodstock, 

Tragedy of." 
"Richard III" (Shakespeare), 212, 

250, 252, 297, 308, 323-326, 330, 

344, 346, 34s. 
"Richard III, True Tragedy of," 304, 

308-310, 311, 346. 
"Robin Conscience," 84, 101. 
Robin Hood, 137, 230 /., 238, 252 /.. 

273/., 292, 341. 
Rogers, Archdeacon, his account of 

the Chester plays, 12 /. 
"Roister Doister." See "Ralph 

Roister Doister." 
"Romance of the Rose, The" (G. 

de Lorris and J. de Meung), 50, 

51. 
"Romeo and Juliet" (Shakespeare), 

161, 221/., 335, 414. 
Roo, John, S3, 100. 



"Rosalinde" (T. Lodge), 256, 262. 
Rose Theatre, 300, note; 429. 
Rowe, Nicholas, 249, 401. 
Roxburghe Ballads, 354 /. 

Sackville, Thomas, Earl of Dorset, 
150, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 201. 
See "Ferrex and Porrex." 

Sacrament, Play of the. 29-31, 46. 

" Sad Shepherd, The" (B. Jonson), 
263, 292, 296. 

St. George plays, 4, 31, note; 41- 

St. Katherine. See "Ludus de Sancta 
Katarina." 

"St. Paul, Conversion of" (Dibgy 
MS.), 31-33, 46. 

Sannazzaro, J., 260. ' 

"Sapho and Phao" (J. Lyly), 174, 
175, 176, 178, 186. 

"Satiromastix" (T. Dekker), 312, 
note; 340, 372, 373, 376, note; 378, 
note; 379, 380, 383, 384, 3SS, 410. 

Schelling, F. E., 39, 122, note; 184, 
225, 345. ' 

Scott, Sir Walter, 40, 326. 

"Sejanus" (B. Jonson), 1, 203, 226, 
349. 

Selden, John, 445. 

"Selimus," 311, 346. 

Seneca, 148, 152, 155; influence of, 
upon English drama, 188 ff.; trans- 
lation of, 189 /.; features of the 
style of. 190 /.,• 195, 196, 198. 203, 
204, 205, 208, 210, 217, 221, 222 /., 
235, 324. 

Shakespeare, William: 36, 58, 104; 
the vice and iniquity in, 142; 150, 
152, 153, 159, 165, 171, 177, 179. 
180, 181, 202, 203, 211, 212, 215, 
218, 221, 245; contribution of, to 
the structure of tragedy, 250; 252, 
257, 258, 261, 267, 269 /., 272, 276, 
277, 278; romantic comedy of, 279- 
288; 297, 300, 301, 312; 322; devel- 
opment of the history play by, 323- 
328, 329, 330, 332-338; 355, 360, 
363, 364, 366, 380, 382, 383, 384. 
392; attitude of, toward realism, 
394-401; 410, 411, 415, 429; allu- 
sions of, to Puritanism, 442. 

Sharp, Thomas, 12. 43. 

"Shepherd's Calendar, The" (E. 
Spenser), 180, 259, 280. 

Sheridan, R. B., 282. 

Shirley, James, 280, 443, 446. 

"Shoemaker's Holiday, The " (T. 
Dekker), 277, 338,^43. 350. 



INDEX 



459 



Shoreditch, location of theatres in, 

428. 
Shrewsbury fragments, 5, /., IfZ. 
Sidney, Lady Mary. See Pembroke, 

Countess of. 
Sidney, Sir Philip, 180, 187, 193, 208, 

256, 257, 261, 262, 430, 435, 437. 
"Siege of Antwerp, The." See 

"Larum for London." 
"Silent Woman, The" (B. Jonson). 

See "Epicoene." 
Simpson, Richard, 357, note; 369, 

note. 
Skelton, John, WO, 116, 273, 439. 

See also "Magnificence." 
Small, R. A., 376, note; 387. 
Smith, Wentworth, 353. 354. 
"Soliman and Pereeda" (T. Kyd?), 

215 /., 227, 240, 246, 363. 
Somer, Will. See "Summer." 
"Spanish Moor's Tragedy, The " (un- 
identified play by Dekker, Haugh- 

ton, and Day), 219. See "Lust's 

Dominion." 
"Spanish Tragedy, The" (T. Kyd), 

197, 200, 209-315, 216, 217. 221, 

227, 240, 245, 366. 
Spenser, Edmund, 37, 50, 112, 115, 

207, note; 259, 436. 
"Spiritata, La" (Grazzini), 168. 
"Staple of News, The" (B. Jonson), 

Stevenson, William, 162, 18S. 

Stirling, Earl of. See Alexander, Sir 
William. 

Stockwood, John, sermon by, 428. 

Stow, John, 299, 353, 357, 363. 

Strange, Lord; the company of, 218, 
270, note; 429/. 

Stubbes, Philip. "Anatomic of 
Abuses," 4, note. 

Stukely, 311, 321, 322, SUS. 

Summer, Will, 93, 167. 

" Summer's Last Will and Testa- 
ment" (T. Nash), 142, H6. 

"Supposes, The" (G. Gascoigne), 129, 
153, 164/., 168, ISIt, 423. 

"Suppositi" (L. Ariosto), 149, 164, 
168, 172. 

Surrey, Henry, Earl of, 190. 

Swan Theatre, 300, note; sketch of in- 
terior, frontispiece. 

Symonds, J. A., 39, 438. 

"Tale of a Tub, A" (B. Jonson), 403 

/., 418. 
"Tamar Cam" (lost play), 322. 



"Tamburlaine," two parts (Marlowe), 

58, 193, 197, 235, 240, 241, 343-246, 

249, 250, 252, 254, 265, 280, 298, 

301 /., 303, 304, 309, 310, 311, 312, 

318, 321, 323, 333. 
"Tamerlane" (N. Rowe), 249. 
"Taming of a Shrew, The," 184. 
"Taming of the Shrew, The " (Shake- 
speare), 149, 167, 185, 281. 
"Tancred and Gismunda" (R. Wil- 

mot, etc.). See "Gismond of Sa- 

lerne." 
Tasso, Torquato, 259, 288, 289, 290. 
"Tempest, The" (Shakespeare), 279, 

284, 285, 286, 287, 288, 295, 399. 
"Temptation of our Lord, The" (J. 

Bale), 87, 100. 
Tennyson, Alfred, 274. 
Terence: Dutch imitators of, 128; 148; 

influence of, on early English com- 
edy, 150-154; translations of, 156, 

182; 168, 170, 172, 188, 394, 402, 

404. 
Textor, Ravisius (Tixier de Ravisi), 

126, 135-138. 
Theatre, The (the playhouse so 

called), 427, 428, 429. 
"Thersites," 120, note; 135-138, 139, 

144 f. 
Thomas, D. L., 364, note. 
Thompson, E. N. S., 48, note; 53, 

note; 67, 386. 
Thorndike, A. H., 274, note; 222, 293, 

294. 
"Thracian Wonder, The," 294. 
"Three Estates, Satire of the" (Sir 

David Lindsay), 83, 88-93, 100. 
"Three Ladies of London, The" (R. 

W.), 140/., 14s. 
"Three Laws, The" (J. Bale), 87, 89, 

91, 101, 112. 
"Three Lords and Three Ladies of 

London, The" (R. W.), 141, 145 f. 
"Thyestes" (Seneca), 195, 208, 223. 
"Tide Tarrieth No Man, The" (G. 

Wapull), 111, 113-117, 141, 143. 
"Timon" (anonymous comedy), 410 

/., 417. 
"Timon of Athens" (partially by " 

Shakespeare), 410. 
"Titus Andronicus" (revised by 

Shakespeare), 209, 212. 217. 218, 

219, 220, 221, 228. 
"Tom Tyler and his Wife," 97. note, 

102. 
"Tottel's Miscellany," 112. 
Tourneur, Cyril, 220, 228, 445. 



460 



INDEX 



Towneley plavs. See "Wakefield." 

" Trial of Chivalry, The, " 343/., 353 /., 
343. 

"Trial of Treasure, The," 109/., 143. 

"Trick to Catch the Old One, A" (T. 
Middleton), 415, 419. 

"Troilus and Cressida" (Shake- 
speare), 384, 388. 

Trope, 3, 4^- 

"Troublesome Reign of John, King of 
England." See "John." 

"Twelfth Night" (Shakespeare), 256, 
257, 263. 270, 279, 280, 284, 387, 
/., S96. 

"Two Angry Women of Abingdon" 
(H. Porter), 404, 4^0. 

"Two Gentlemen of Verona" (Shake- 
speare), 261, 279, 280, 282, 283, 
287, 295, 401, note. 

"Two Italian Gentlemen." See 
"Fedele and Fortunio." 

"Two Lamentable Tragedies." See 
"Two Tragedies in One." 

"Two Noble Kinsmen" (Fletcher and 
Shakespeare?), 281. 

"Two Tragedies in One" (R. Yaring- 
ton), 355, 363/., 365, 3S7. 

Udall, Nicholas, 27, 86, 150; transla- 
tion of Terence by, 156, 182; char- 
acteristics of, as a dramatist, 159 /. ; 
175, 183, 393. 

Undcrdowne, Thomas, 260. 

"Ur-Hamlet, The." See "Hamlet." 

"Utopia" (Sir Thomas More) , 155. 

"Valiant Welshman, The" (R. A.), 

340, 350. 
Vaughan, Henry, 444. 
Vaughan, William, 441. 
Vergil, ISO, 258. 
"View of Sundry Examples, A" (A. 

Munday), 353, 357 /. 
"Vittoria Corombona," or "The 

White Devil" (J. Webster), 445. 
"Volpone" (B. Jonson), 415, 417. 

Wager, Lewis. See "Mary Magda- 
lene, Life and Repentance of." 

Wager, W., "Cruel Debtor," 143. 
See also "Longer Thou Livest, etc." 

Wakefield plays, 7, 8, 16 /., 44, 147. 
Also called "Towneley plays." 

Wallace, C. W., 382, SS7. 

Wallace, M. W., 160, note. 

Wapull, George. See "Tide Tarrieth 
No Man." 



War of the Theatres, The, 370, 372- 

386, 387, 389 /., 407. 
"Warning for Fair Women, A," 354, 

355, 357-362, 363, 368, 387. 
"Wars of Cyrus, The," 247-249, Z6B. 
"Watkyn and JefiFraye, Brief Dia- 
logue between two Priests' Ser- 
vants named," 84. 
"Weakest Goeth to the Wall, The," 

243, note; 295, 403, note. 
"Wealth and Health," 106-108, 114, 

142. 
"Weather, Play of the" (J. Hey- 

wood), 94, 95/., iO/. 
Webster, John, 221, 415, 417, 445. 
Westminster School, 154. 
"Westward Hoe" (Dekker and Web- 
ster), 415, 417. 
"What You Will" (J. Marston), 

388. 
"What You Will" (Shakespeare). 

See "Twelfth Night." 
"When You See Me, You Know Me" 

(S. Rowley), 342, 351. 
Whetstone, George, 360, note. 
White, Thomas, sermon by, 427. 
"White Devil, The" (J. Webster). 

See "Vittoria Corombona." 
"Whore of Babylon, The" (T. Dek- 
ker), 343/., 35/ . 
"Widow's Tears, The" (G. Chap- 
man), 416. 
Wilkins, George, 364, 365, 366, 387 f. 
Williams, W. H., 105, note; 142. 
Wilmot, Robert. See "Giamond of 

Salerne." 
Wilson, Robert (the elder), 140, 14Gf. 
Wilson, Robert (the younger), 353. 
"Wily Beguiled," 154, 413, 414, 4^1- 
"Winter's Tale, The" (Shakespeare), 
152, 256, 270, 279, 280, 284, 285, 
286, 295. 
"Wisdom." See "Mind, Will, and 

Understanding." 
"Wit and Science" (J. Redford), 76, 

82, 99. 
"Witty and Witless" (J. Heywood), 

93, 94, 102. 
Wolsey, Cardinal, satirized in inter- 
ludes, 83, 84 /. 
"Woman in the Moon, The" (J. 

Lyly), 174, 179, ISG. 
"Woman Killed with Kindness, A" 

(T. Heywood), 367/., 388. 
Woodes, Nathaniel. See "Conflict of 

Conscience, The." 
"Woodstock. Tragedy of," 338/, 349. 



INDEX 



461 



"World and the Child, The." 78-80, 

99. 
Wotton, Henry, 215, note. 
"Wounds of Civil War, The" (T. 

Lodge), 304, 312. SJ,6. 
"Wyat, Sir Thomas" (Dekker and 

Webster), 344, 351. 
Wyclif, John, 49. 
Wylley, Thomas, lost Protestant 

dramas by. 84, 101. 
Wynkyn de Worde, 78, 80. 

Yarington, Robert. 355, 362, 363, 365. 

387. 
Yeats, W. B., 328, note. 
Yelverton, Christopher, 196. 



Yong, or Young, Bartholomew, 261. 

York, mystery plays at. 7. 8. 12. 15, 
44 /.; paternoster and creed plays 
at, 49. 

"Yorkshire Tragedy, A," 352, 355, 
363-366, 387. 

Young, K., 4.2. 93, note; 102. 

"Your Five Gallants" (T. Middle- 
ton). 415, 420. 

"Youth, Interlude of," 80, note; 81/., 
99. 

Yver, Jacques, 215, note. 

" Zabeta, Masque of" (G. Gascoigne), 
179, 187. 




CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



